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UC-NRLF 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S 
THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


DISSER    M;ON 

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•^'•<    i)   GRi.',OL;-;V 


WILMINGTON,  OHIC) 
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A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S 
THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


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BY 

RAYMOND  GREGORY 


WILMINGTON,  OHIO 
1919 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


1.  STANDPOINT  OF  THIS  STUDY. — The  writer  holds  that  reality 
is  a  systematic  whole,  that  the  mind,  the  body,  and  the  external 
world  are  organic  to  one  another.    To  insulate  consciousness,  to 
divide  the  universe  into  a  realm  of  knowledge  and  a  realm  of 
external  reality,  he  regards  as  an  untenable  position.    In  the  words 
of  Green,  "A  within  implies  a  without  and  we  are  not  entitled  to 
say  anything  is  without  or  outside  consciousness ;  for  externality, 
being  a  relation  which,  like  any  other  relation,  exists  only  in  the 
medium  of  consciousness,   (only  between  certain  objects  as  they 
are  for  consciousness,)  cannot  be  a  relation  between  consciousness 
and  anything  else."* 

In  so  far  as  it  denies  irresoluble  dualism,  this  standpoint  is  one 
with  so-called  objective  idealism,  but  it  might  just  as  well  be  called 
realism.  It  unqualifiedly  denies  that  that  which  is  present  in  the 
experience  is  therefore  "in  the  mind,"  or  that  to  be  means  to  be 
perceived.  Sensations,  if  we  can  speak  of  such  analyzed  elements, 
are  external  objects  and  not  "ideas."  On  the  other  hand,  it  holds 
that  the  finite  knower  is  part  of  the  universe  and  not  a  passive  or 
detached  spectator.  It  affirms  with  Bosanquet  that  truth  is  the 
whole,  that  the  worlds  of  finite  centers  of  experience  are  true  in 
so  far  as  they  correspond  with  the  coherent  whole  of  which  they 
are  parts.  It  is  obvious  therefore  why  Locke's  theory  of  knowl- 
edge, embracing  as  it  does  the  doctrine  of  ideas  and  of  two  worlds, 
may  be  regarded  as  a  typical  antithesis  to  this  standpoint. 

2.  METHOD. — Locke's  theory  of  knowledge,  however,  will  not  be 
used  as  a  mere  foil  for  a  rival  theory,  as  is  the  case  with  the  criti- 
cisms of  Liebnitz  and  Cousin.    In  the  spirt  of  Socrates,  the  writer 
will  attempt  to  meet  Locke  on  his  own  ground  and  criticize  his 
theory  of  knowledge  with  reference  to  his  own  statements  and  the 
common  facts  of  experience  as  accessible  to  him  as  to  us.    The 
method  of  immanent  criticism  here  adopted  will  doubtless  lay  this 
study  open  to  the  danger  of  loose  organization.    Unity,  it  is  hoped, 
will  be  achieved  by  constant  reference  to  the  standpoint  of  this 
study. 

*  (Prolegomena  to  Ethics,  p.   73.) 


425844 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


3.  SCOPE. — The  chief  concern  of  this  study  is  Locke's  theory  of 
knowledge;  but  to  treat  the  thought- world  as  distinct  from  reality, 
epistemology  as  distinct  from  metaphysics,  would  be  to  deny  the 
validity  of  the  standpoint  of  organic  realism ;  therefore,  a  consid- 
eration of  Locke's  metaphysical  doctrines  is  essential. 

4.  LOCKE'S  KNOWLEDGE  OF  PHILOSOPHY  AND  SCIENCE. — Before 
taking  up  his  philosophic  method  it  is  of  interest  to  note  that 
Locke  had  a  wide  acquaintance  with  philosophic  and  scientific 
literature.    In  regard  to  the  former  it  is  said  that  before  he  ven- 
tured to  publish  anything  he  wrote,  "he  had  acquainted  himself 
with  nearly  every  book  of  importance  that  had  been  offered  to  the 
world    for    its    enlightenment   or    mystification    on   those    sub- 
jects *  *."f    Special  mention  is  made  of  Bacon,  Hobbes,  Gassendi, 
and  Descartes.    Being  a  doctor  of  medicine  himself  and  a  member 
of  the  Royal  Society,  he  doubtless  had  a  full  and  accurate  knowl- 
edge of  current  scientific  opinions,  especially  of  human  anatomy 
and  physiology.    He  had  a  large  number  of  friends  among  scien- 
tific men.    Of  this  number  Boyle,  Sydenham,  and  Newton  are  of 
chief  interest.  The  uncritical  ease  with  which  he  adopted  scientific 
opinions  is  attested  by  Brewer  who  is  quoted  as  saying,  "The  cele- 
brated Locke,  who  was  incapable  of  understanding  the  Trincipia' 
from  his  want  of  geometrical  knowledge,  inquired  of  Huyghens  if 
all  the  mathematical  propositions  in  that  work  were  true.    When 
he  was  assured  that  he  might  depend  upon  -their  certainty,  he  took 
them  for  granted,  and  carefully  examined  the  reasonings  and 
corollaries  deduced  from  them.     In  this  manner  he  acquired  a 
knowledge  of  the  physical  truths  in  the  'Principia,'  and  became  a 
firm  believer  in  the  discoveries  it  contained.    In  the  same  manner 
he  studied  the  treatise  on  'Optic,'  and  made  himself  master  of 
every  part  of  it  which  was  not  mathematical."* 

5.  LOCKE'S  PROBLEM. — Within  this  vast  range  of  knowledge,  as 
will  appear  to  the  reader  of  the  Essay,  Locke  fastens  upon  certain 
doctrines  here  and  there,  each  without  reference  to  the  others, 

t(H.  B.  Fox  Bourne,  Life  of  John  Locke,  Vol.   I.  p.   72.) 
»(ibld.  p.  216.) 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


and  holds  to  them  with  childlike  tenacity.  In  his  philosophic  work 
he  seeks  to  harmonize  but  never  to  discredit  these  doctrines.  The 
ones  of  most  importance  here  are  the  following:  the  doctrine  of 
ideas,  the  duality  of  the  universe,  the  mediating  function  of  the 
nervous  system,  and  the  existence  of  an  external,  unperceived 
realm  of  atoms  in  motion.  Locke's  problem  is  to  give  an  account 
of  knowledge,  its  nature,  origin,  extent,  and  validity,  on  the  basis 
of  these  doctrines. 

6.  LOCKE'S  EMPIRICISM. — On  account  of  his  psychological  or 
introspective  method  of  dealing  with  the  problem  of  knowledge, 
Locke  is  usually  classed  as  an  empiricist.  There  is  justification 

for  so  classifying  him.  ?He  holds  that  experience  is  the  source  of 
all  our  ideas.  "Whence  has  it  [the  mind]  all  the  materials  of 
reason  and  knowledge  ?"  he  asks.  "To  this  I  answer,  in  one  word, 
from  experience;  and  in  that  all  our  knowledge  is  founded,  and 
from  that  it  ultimately  derives  itself.*  He  insists  that 
observation  and  experience  rather  than  hypothesis  or  assumed' 
principle  are  the  true  sources  of  knowledge,  f  "The  simple 
ideas  we  receive  from  sensation  and  reflection)  are  the 
boundaries  of  our  thoughts;  beyond  which  the  mind,  whatever 
efforts  it  would  make,  is  not  able  to  advance  one  jot;  nor  can  it 
make  any  discoveries  when  it  would  pry  into  the  nature  and  hid- 
den causes  of  those  ideas. "J, 

He  leads  us  to  suppose  that  the  mind  is  a  passive  receptacle 
for  ideas,  a  white  paper  on  which  things  become  written,  a  wax 
tablet  on  which  characters  are  impressed,  a  dark  cabinet  into 
which  ideas  come.  Knowledge  is  a  fermentation  of  the  raw  mate- 
rial thus  supplied.  Truths  are  produced  by  a  kind  of  "logical 
chemistry."  This  interpretation  is  further  illustrated  by  his  em- 
phatic denial  of  innate  ideas.  There  are  no  "innate  principles," 
"primary  notions,"  innate  impressions,"  "original  notions  or  prin- 
ciples," "truths,"  "maxims,"  or  "propositions.'^  The  principle  of 
contradiction  is  not  innate,  **  nor  is  identity.^* 

•II.   i.  2.  |I.  ii,  1,  13,  17. 

til.   i.   2,   10,  21,;   I.   iv.   25.      *•!.   iv.   S. 
$11.   xxlii.   29  ttl.   iv.   4. 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


7.  LOCKE'S  RATIONALISM.  On  the  other  hand  Locke  is  quite  as 
rationalistic  as  Descartes  or  Democratus.  He  believes  that  all 
things  may  bs  ultimately  understood.  Reality  lies  behind  expe- 
rience and  true  knowledge  can  be  attained  only  by  thought.  "For 
since  the  things  the  mind  contemplates,"  he  says,  "are  none  of 
them,  besides  itself,  present  to  the  understanding,  it  is  necessary 
that  something  else,  as  a  sign  or  representation  of  the  thing  it 
considers,  should  be  present  to  it:  and  these  are  ideas."*  He  ad- 
mits many  ideas  which  can  be  ascribed  neither  to  sensation  nor 
reflection,  e.  g.  God,  substance,  relation.  He  admits  all  that  a 
temperate  advocate  of  innate  ideas  could  demand.  There  are 
certain  "principles  of  common  reason/'f  or  "common  sense.":):  By 
a  certain  inherent  principle  of  repugnancy  the  mind  "can  not 
but  be  satisfied  that  there  doth  something  at  that  time  really 
exist  without  us."§  The  "ready  assent  of  the  mind  to  some 
truths"**  depends  upon  a  "faculty  of  the  mind"  by  which  a  truth 
is  recognized  by  its  "native  evidence."ft  This  is  "intuitive 
knowledge. "it  The  ideas  of  relation  the  mind  adds  to  the  simple 
ideas§§  they  are  "creatures  of  the  understanding."  The  percep- 
tion of  identity  or  diversity  is  "the  first  act  of  the  mind,  when  it 
has  any  sentiments  or  ideas  at  all."***  Likewise  the  idea  of  sub- 
stance comes  neither  from  sensation  nor  reflection,  ftt  The  clear- 
est and  most  certain  knowledge  that  human  frailty  is  capable  of 
is  intuitive  knowledge.  It  is  irresistible  as  the  "bright  sun- 
shine."JJJ  All  our  knowledge,  of  whatever  sort,  depends  upon 
this  for  its  certainty  and  evidence;  J'That  there  is  a  God,  and 
what  that  God  is,  nothing  can  discover  to  us,  nor  judge  in  us,  but 
natural  reason.  For  whatever  discovery  we  receive  any  other  way 
must  come  originally  from  inspiration,  which  is  an  opinion  or 
persuasion  in  the  mind  whereof  a  man  knows  not  the  rise  nor 
reason,  but  is  received  there  as  a  truth  coming  from  an  unknown 
and  therefore  a  supernatural  cause,  and  not  founded  upon  those 
principles  or  observations  in  the  way  of  reasoning  which  make 
the  understanding  admit  other  things  for  truths. "* 

*IV.   xxi.    4.  •*!.   ii.   11.  ***IV.   i.   4. 

tl.    iv.    10.  ttlV.   vii.    10.  tttH.    xxiii.    4. 

II.   iii.   4.  ttlV.   ii.   1.  ttJIV.   ii.    1. 

§IV.    xi.   9.  §§III.    iii.    11. 

*  (Letter  to  Lord  King,   Fox  Bourne's  Life  of  John   Locke,   Vol.   I.   p.   162, 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


It  is  thus  evident  that  Locke  has  two  methods  of  investigation. 
This  ambiguity  of  method  together  with  the  inconsistent  but  in- 
violable doctrines  mentioned  above  preclude  the  possibility  of  a 
consistent  system  of  philosophy.  It  is  no  wonder  that  Victor 
Cousin  exclaims.  "Nothing  is  so  inconsistent  as  Locke."f 

8.  IDEAS  AS  CONTENT.  Before  we  can  proceed  with  an  inves- 
tigation of  Locke's  theory  of  knowledge  it  is  necessary  to  deter- 
mine what  he  means  by  ideas,  mind,  and  external  body. 

In  the  first  place  idea  stands  for  "whatever  is  the  object  of  the 
understanding  when  a  man  thinks. "J    "Every  one  is  conscious  of 
them  in  himself,  and  men's  words  and  actions  will  satisfy  him  that 
they  are  in  others."    Ideas  "are  nothing  but  the  immediate  objects 
of  our  minds  in  thinking."§     "Every  man  is  conscious  to  hims'elf 
that  he  thinks,  and  that  which  his  mind  is  applied  about  whilst 
thinking,  being  the  ideas  that  are  there,  it  is  past  doubt,  that  men  ' 
have  in  their  minds  several  ideas  such  as  those  experienced  by  the  | 
words    whiteness,    hardness,    thinking,    motion,    man,    elephant,  j 
army,  drunkenness,  and  others."**     The  important  point  here  is 
that  ideas  are  in  the  mind. 

^^^^^bMJHriVMH  *w»»«c~-       ^  J 

It  must  be  assumed  that  Locke  applies  the  term  thinking  to 
whatever  goes  on  in  the  mind,  and  means  sense  perception  as  well 
as  imagination  or  reasoning.  What  common  sense  regards  as  ob- 
jects in  the  external  world,  trees,  elephants,  houses,  are  really  in 
the  mind.  These  objects,  whether.it  be  thinking  itself  or  man, 
are  ideas  that  are  there.  ThatJa^  whatever  is  the  object  for  an  A 
observing  or  thinking  mind,  is  content.  Ideas,  then,  are  mental  \ 
content.  Although  ideas  are  in  the  mind,  yet  they  are  not  part  of 
the  mind.  They  appear  to  be  foreign  material  over  against  which 
the  mind  stands  as  an  observer.  The  nature  of  this  content,  in 
the  perception  of  external  objects,  is,  it  is  to  be  inferred  from 

t(History  of   Modern   Phil.,   Vol.    II.    p.    253.    N.    Y.    1893.) 
8  (Second  Letter  to  the  Bishop  of  Worcester.)          **II.   i.   1. 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


Locke's  use  of  the  terms  "phantasm"  and  "species,"  imaginal. 
What  is  in  the  mind  is,  not  the  real  object,  but  an  efflux  or  species. 
We  know  external  objects  by  means  of  these  representations. 
When  the  idea  is  of  thinking,  believing,  or  knowing,  the  idea  is 
still  of  the  nature  of  an  image,  or  representation,  i.  e.,  of  the 
mind's  own  activity.  In  either  case  there  is  something  there  that 
stands  for  or  is  the  mark  or  sign  of  the  real  thing  or  activity. 
Ideas  are  all  that  the  mind  is  aware  of  directly.  They  are  its 
only  immediate  objects.  They  are  the  boundaries  of  our  own 
thoughts  beyond  which  the  mind  is  not  able  to  advance  one  jot.* 
There  are  no  unconscious  ideas.  An  idea  to  be  an  idea  must  be 
taken  notice  of;  it  must  be  before  the  mind.  There  are  no  ideas 
that  are  not  content.  In  the  case  of  ideas,  to  be  is  to  be  perceived. 
When  ideas  are  said,  figuratively,  to  be  laid  up  in  the  repository 
of  the  memory,  that  signifies  merely  that  the  mind  has  the  power 
to  have  again  ideas  it  once  had.  Ideas  in  the  memory  are  "actually 
nowhere."!  Impressions  from  the  outside  world  may  get  as  far 
as  the  brain,  the  "presence  room"  of  the  mind,  but  they  are  not 
ideas.  "That  which  uses  to  produce  the  idea,  though  conveyed  in 
by  the  usual  organ  not  being  taken  notice  of  in  the  understanding 
and  so  imprinting  no  idea  in  the  mind,  there  follows  no  sensation. 
So  that  wherever  there  is  sense  or  perception,  there  some  idea  is 
actually  produced  and  present  in  the  understanding.'^  Ideas, 
thus,  appear' to  be  entities  of  some  sort  that  are  present  in  the 
mind  as  its  objects,  but  exist  nowhere  elseJ^From  his  metaphor 
of  the  dark  cabinet,  we  infer  that  ideas  are  entities,  sui  generis, 
contained  in  the  mind  as  in  a  receptacle.  They  are  not  external 
real  things,  for  they  exist  nowhere  else  but  in  the  mind.  Neither 
are  they  parts  of  the  mind  or  any  modification  of  it.  They  are 
neither  fish,  flesh,  nor  fowl,  neither  mind  nor  matter,  but  a  tertium 
quid,  unique  and  unanalyzable.  ,• 

•II.    xxiii.    29. 
til.   x.   2. 
til.    ix.    4. 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


9.  IDEAS  AS  MODIFICATION.  That  ideas  are  content  appears  to 
be  the  obvious  conclusion.  But  when  we  consider  the  mind,  as 
Locke  describes  it,  a  passive  substance,  like  a  wax  tablet  or  a 
white  paper  on  which  ideas  are  impressed,  it  does  seem  as  if  he 
intended  us  to  regard  ideas  as  modifications  of  the  mind.  Just  as 
the  seal  imprints  a  figure  in  the  wax  so  we  consider  that  the  ex- 
ternal object,  through  the  agency  of  the  sense  organs  and  the 
brain,  imprints  a  more  or  less  faithful  picture  or  image  of  itself 
on  the  mind.  And  just  as  the  figure  in  the  wax  is  a  certain  con- 
formation or  modification  of  the  wax  so  the  idea  is  a  certain  con- 
formation or  modification  of  the  mind.  This  interpretation  of 
Locke  finds  further  justification  in  the  fact  that  he  does  not  deny 
the  possibility  that  the  mind  is  a  material  and  hence  impressible 
substance.^. 

Brown  holds,  as  against  Reid,  that  Locke's  "ideas"  are  not  fic- 
titious or  hybrid  entities  which  mediate  between  the  mind  and 
external  objects,  but  are  actually,  according  to  Locke,  himself, 
modifications  of  the  mind.  He  quotes  Locke  as  saying,  "Our 
senses,  conversant  about  particular  sensible  objects,  do  convey 
several  distinct  perceptions  of  things,  according  to  those  various 
ways  wherein  those  objects  do  affect  them.*  Now  perception,  it 
is  admitted,  is  an  act  of  the  mind.  Here  we  find  Locke  using, 
"perception"  as  an  equivalent  to  "idea."  Locke  must  mean,  there- 
fore, that  the  idea  is  the  perception,  and  consequently  a  modifica- 
tion or  determination  of  mind.  When  Locke  speaks  of  "percep- 
tions" being  conveyed  in,  the  figurative  language  does  not  confuse 
us.  But  he  speaks  of  "ideas"  in  the  same  way,  so  why  is  not  that 
figurative  also  ?  All  this  talk  about  ideas  as  separate  entities  con- 
veyed into  the  dark  cabinet  of  the  mind  through  the  sense  "inlets," 
is  just  so  much  metaphor.  The  "ideas"  of  Locke,  thinks  Browr, 
are  not  substantially  separate  and  distinct  things  in  the  mind,  but 
are  acts  or  modifications  of  the  mind.]  To  use  Brown's  exact 
words,  "I  can  not  but  think  these,  and  the  similar  passages  that 
occur  in  the  Essay,  ought  of  themselves,  to  have  convinced  Dr. 

*  (Brown's  Lectures,  Vol.   I.   Lecture  XXVI.) 


10  A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


Reid,  that  he  who  spoke  of  Perceptions,  conveyed  into  the  mind, 
and  of  avenues  provided  for  the  reception  of  Sensations,  might 
also,  when  he  spoke  of  the  conveyance  of  ideas,  have  meant  noth- 
ing more  than  the  simple  external  origin  of  these  notions,  or  con- 
ceptions, or  feelings,  or  affections  of  the  mind,  to  which  he  gave 
the  name  ideas ;  especially  when  there  is  not  a  single  argumnt  in 
his  Essay,  or  in  any  of  his  works,  that  is  founded  on  the  substan 
tial  reality  of  our  ideas,  as  separate  and  distinct  things  in  the 
mind."* 

Among  the  various  opinions  Locke  expresses  about  "ideas," 
"one,  however,"  says  Hamilton,  "he  has  formally  rejected,  and 
that  is  the  very  opinion  attributed  to  him  by  Dr.  Brown, — that 
the  idea,  or  object  of  consciousness  in  perception,  is  only  a  modi- 
fication of  the  mind  itself."  This  formal  rejection  is  to  be  found 
in  Locke's  Examination  of  P.  Malebranche's  Opinion.  I  quote  di- 
rectly from  Locke.  "I  see  the  purple  color  of  the  violet ;  this,  says 
he,  is  a  sentiment :  I  desire  to  know  what  sentiment  is ;  that,  says 
he,  is  a  modification  of  the  soul.  I  take  the  word,  and  desire  to  see 
what  I  can  conceive  by  it  concerning  my  soul ;  and  here,  I  conf  ess: 
I  can  conceive  nothing  more,  but  that  I  have  the  idea  of  purple 
/  in  my  mind,  which  I  had  not  before,  without  being  able  to  appre- 
hend anything  the  mind  does  or  suffers  in  this,  besides  barely 
having  the  idea  of  purple ;  and  so  the  good  word  modification  sig- 
nifies nothing  to  me  more  than  I  knew  before :  e.  g.,  that  I  have 
now  the  idea  of  purple  in  it,  which  I  had  not  some  minutes  since."t 
Hamilton  now  quotes :  "But  to  examine  their  doctrine  of  modi- 
fication a  little  further.  Different  sentiments  are  different  modi- 
fications of  the  mind.  The  mind  or  soul  that  perceives  is  one  im- 
material indivisible  substance.  Now  I  see  the  white  and  black  on 
this  paper,  I  hear  one  singing  in  the  next  room,  I  feel  the  warmth 
of  the  fire  I  sit  by,  and  I  taste  the  apple  I  am  eating,  and  all  this 
at  the  same  time.  Now,  I  ask,  take  modification  for  what  you 
please,  can  the  same  unextended  indivisible  substance  have  differ- 
ent, nay,  inconsistent  and  opposite  (as  these  of  white  and  black 
must  be)  modifications  at  the  same  time?  Or  must  we  suppose 

'(Lecture   XXVI.) 

t(Exam.    of   P.    M.s    Opin.    39.) 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  11 


distinct  parts  in  an  indivisible  substance,  one  for  black,  another 
for  white,  and  another  for  red  ideas,  and  so  of  the  rest  of  those  in- 
finite sensations  which  we  have  in  sorts  and  degrees;  all  which 
we  can  distinctly  perceive,  and  so  are  distinct  ideas,  some  whereof 
are  opposite,  as  heat  and  cold,  which  man  may  feel  at  the  same  . 
time?  I  was  ignorant  before  how  sensation  was  performed  in 
us ;  this  they  call  an  explanation  of  it.  Must  I  say  now  I  under- 
stand it  better?  If  this  is  to  cure  one's  ignorance,  it  is  a  very 
slight  disease,  and  the  charm  of  two  or  three  insignificant  words 
will  at  any  time  remove  it,  probatum  est."* 

It  seems  unavoidable  to  assume  that  Locke  held,  in  one  p>lace  or 
another,  both  these  views  in  regard  to  the  nature  of  ideas.  \Where 
he  is  most  empirical,  where  he  describes  experience  as  he  finds  it,  **' 
ideas  are  for  him  entities,  sui  generis,  neither  parts  nor  modifi- 
cations  of  the  mind,  which  are  what  they  appear  as.  But  where  ' 
he  is  concerned  with  developing  a  theory  of  perception  on  the 
assumption  of  an  external  world  of  material  particles  in  motion, 
he  seems  to  regard  the  mind  as  an  active-passive  substance  within 
this  world,  which  is  bombarded  by  these  material  particles,  and 
which  in  turn  reacts  upon  them.  The  scars  of  the  conflict  are 
ideas,  impressions  made  by  these  material  things  upon  the  cogni- 
tive substance  itself.  There  seems  to  be  no  use  in  twisting  what 
he  says  to  make  it  conform  to  a  system.  Locke  seems  to  have  ac- 
cepted two  points  of  view  which  he  was  never  able  to  harmonize, 
and  neither  of  which  he  was  able  to  discard.^ 

10.  IDEAS  AS  OBJECTS.  Locke  states  so  emphatically  that  the 
immediate  obi ecFs  before  trie  mind  are  ideas,  beyond  which  we  are 
not  able  to  advance  one  jot,  that  we  are  ifpt  to  conclude  that  ideas 
are  always  and  everywhere  these  immediate  ^elf -contained  ob- 
jects. "Whatever  the  mind  perceives  in  itself,"  he  says,  "or  is 
the  immediate  object  of  perception,  thought,  or  understanding, 
that  I  call  idea."f  Whether  we  regard  idea  as  content  or  modifi- 
cation of  the  mind,  the  term  seems  to  be  exhausted  by  the  immedi- 
ate object.  The  object  is  the  idea,  we  say,  and  there  is  no  idea 
that  is  not  an  immediate  object.  Ideas  make  up  the  whole  of  what 

*(Ibid.    39.) 
til.  viii.   8. 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


is  presented  and  there  is  no  idea  that  is  not  a  part  or  whole  of 
what  is  presented.  That  is,  ideas  (or  objects)  are  what  they  ap- 
pear as,  as  given  matters  of  fact.  Psychology,  from  this  point 
of  view,  is  purely  descriptive.  It  aims  to  state  in  an  exact  way 
how  these  natural  occurrences  take  place.  We  have  consequently 
the  theory  of  association  of  ideas,  by  which  we  trace  certain 
sequences  or  combinations  of  ideas.  Consistently  with  this  view 
Locke  says,  "some  of  our  ideas  have  a  natural  correspondence 
and  connexion  one  with  another :  it  is  the  office  and  excellency 
of  our  reason  to  trace  these,  and  hold  them  together  in  that  union 
and  correspondence  which  is  founded  in  their  peculiar  beings. 
Besides  this,  there  is  another  connexion  of  ideas  wholly  owing  to 
chance  or  custom,  ideas'that  in  themselves  are  not  all  of  kin,  come 
to  be  so  united  in  some  men's  minds,  that  it  is  very  hard  to  sepa- 
rate them ;  they  always  keep  in  company,  and  the  one  no  sooner 
at  any  time  comes  into  the  understanding,  but  its  associate  ap- 
pears with  it;  and  if  they  are  more  than  two,  which  are  thus 
united,  the  whole  gang,  always  inseparable,  show  themselves  to- 
gether."* 

As  far  as  psychology  of  this  type  depends  upon  internal  obser- 
vation, it  is  descriptive.  But  it  can  seek  an  explanation  of  these 
observed  sequences  and  "gangs"  of  ideas,  in  the  neural  processes 
of  the  brain  or  of  the  whole  nervous  system.  Locke  does  this. 
"Custom,"  he  says,  "settles  habits  of  thinking  in  the  understand- 
ing, as  well  as  of  determining  in  the  will,  and  of  motions  of  the 
body;  all  which  seem  to  be  but  trains  of  motion  in  the  animal 
spirits,  which,  once  set  agoing,  continue  in  the  same  steps  they 
have  been  used  to,  which,  by  often  treading,  are  worn  into  a 
smooth  path,  and  the  motion  in  it  becomes  easy,  and,  as  it  were, 
natural."!  Now,  ideas  of  sense,  red,  yellow,  blue,  tones,  noises, 
tastes,  and  smells,  are  caused,  according  to  Locke,  by  the  impres- 
sions of  certain  objects  upon  appropriate  sense  organs,  which  im- 
pressions set  up  a  corresponding  agitation  in  the  animal  spirits, 
which  is  conducted  along  the  nerve  conduits  to  the  brain,  where 

•II.   xxxili.   5. 
til.    XXXlii.    6. 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  13 


it  causes  the  idea  to  appear  to  the  mind.  "And  if  these  organs," 
he  says,  "or  the  nerves,  which  are  conduits  to  convey  them  from 
without  to  their  audience  in  the  brain,  the  mind's  presence  room 
(as  I  may  so  call  it),  are  any  of  them  disordered,  as  not  to  per- 
form their  functions,  they  have  no  postern  to  be  admitted  by ;  no 
other  way  to  bring  themselves  into  view,  and  be  perceived  by  the 
understanding."'  "As  the  bodies  that  surround  us  do  diversely 
affect  our  organs,  the  mind  is  forced  to  receive  the  impressions, 
and  can  not  avoid  the  perception  of  those  ideas  that  are  annexed 
to  them."f 

Locke  is  thus  preparing  the  way  for  a  complete  explanation  for 
the  appearance  and  combination  of  ideas  according  to  neural  pro- 
cesses in  the  brain  excited  by  outside  objects,  and  continued  or 
repeated  according  to  chance  or  habit.  Then,  appearance  of  every 
idea  is  due  to  a  neural  process.  Ideas  are  associated  together  in 
various  ways  due  to  the  paths  formed  in  the  brain.  Ideas  as  they 
appear  to  the  observing  mind  arc  so  many  independent  objects. 
All  we  can  say  is  that  they  appear  thus  and  thus  in  series  or  clus- 
ters. But  below  the  surface  of  observation,  in  the  brain,  there  we 
find  the  machinery  for  all  these  wonderful  combinations.  We  can 
thus  see  why  ideas  are  objects  and  only  objects.  They  can  not  be 
more,  from  the  side  of  the  observing  mind,  than  just  what  they 
appear  as.  It  would  be  only  a  step,  and  that  a  logical  one,  to  say 
that  ideas  are  brain  processes,  that  conscious  processes  are  neural 
processes  of  a  peculiar  quality.  Just  as  islands  are  the  tops  of 
mountains,  so  neural  processes  when  they  reach  a  certain  level  of 
intensity  or  complexity,  stick  their  heads  up  into  the  field  of  con- 
sciousness, as  it  were.  The  real  active  agent  in  thinking  would 
then  be  the  brain.  The  mind  as  a  separate  active  cognitive  agent 
would  be  dropped.  This  is  the  precipice  towards  which  his  theory 
is  leading  him. 

11.  IDEAS.  AS  MEANING.  Ideas  are,  therefore,  according  to  this 
view  of  Locke,  just  mental  content,  i.  e.,  objects.  But,  as  Locke 
points  out,  men  make  mistakes  in  their  thinking.  Objects  before 
the  mind  are  thought  to  have  a  significance,  which,  in  truth,  they 

•II.  iii.  1. 
til.    i.    25. 


14  A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


do  not  have.  Most  of  the  disputes  and  manglings 
come  from  confused  or  undetermined  ideas.*  In  the  case  of  sense 
perception,  when  a  man's  idea  of  a  leopard  is  confused  or  inade- 
quate, when  his  idea  of  a  leopard  consists  merely  of  a  beast  with 
spots,  he  is  apt  to  call  every  spotted  beast  a  leopard. f  He  does 
this  because  his  idea  of  the  leopard  is  not  clear  and  distinct.  But 
if  ideas  are  just  objects  before  the  mind,  how  can  they  be  con- 
fused or  inadequate  ?  If  all  spotted  beasts  look  alike  to  me,  as  far 
as  I  am  concerned,  they  are  leopards.  If  a  yellow  rose  and  a  pink 
rose  appear  to  have  no  difference  of  color  in  a  jiim  light,  there  is 
no  difference,  for  ideas  are  what  they  appear  as^ 

Here  is  a  real  difficulty  and  Locke  meets  itj.  The  confusion 
comes  in  through  the  use  of  names,  he  says.  There  are  various 
names  for  various  objects  and  each  name  is  supposed  to  have  a 
determinate  significance.  The  name  leopard  means  a  feline  mam- 
mal with  spots  in  broken  rings  or  rosettes.  The  name  jaguar 
means  a  feline  mammal  with  spots  in  rosettes  but  with  an  addi- 
tional spot  in  the  center  of  the  rosette.  If  one  means  by  leopard 
merely  a  spotted  beast,  the  meaning  or  significance  he  attaches 
to  the  name  is  inadequate,  and  he  is  apt  to  call  every  spotted  beast 
a  leopard.  But  if  he  does  attach  determinate  meanings  both  to 
leopard  and  jaguar,  when  he  sees  a  spotted  animal  with  certain 
characteristics  among  which  is  the  central  spot  within  the  rosette, 
he  applies  the  name  jaguar  to  it,  or  if  it  is  without  this  central 
spot,  he  applies  the  name  leopard.  The  meaning  of  the  different 
words  is  thus  clear  and  adequate  because  he  can  apply  the  name 
correctly.  But  a  man  who  can  thus  distinguish  between  meanings, 
may  fall  into  error  and  apply  the  wrong  name  to  the  spotted  ani- 
mal before  him,  if  that  animal  is  seen,  say,  in  the  twilight  or 
through  a  tangle  of  undergrowth.  The  immediate  object,  in  this 
case,  is  what  it  is,  that  is  clear.  The  confusion  lies  in  that  it  is 
possible  to  apply  two  names  with  different  determinate  meanings 
to  the  present  object.  The  office  of  a  name  appears,  therefore,  to 
be  that  of  a  carrier  of  meaning.  It  is  a  means  or  instrument  by 

*  (Epistle    to    the    Reader.) 
til.   xxix.   7. 
$11.   xxix.   6. 


A  STUDY  OP  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  16 


which  we  apply  meaning  or  significance  to  the  immediate  object 
before  the  mind.  When  I  say,  "This  is  a  leopard,"  I  am  placing 
the  present  object  in  that  system  which  I  call  my  knowledge  of  the 
animal  world,  i.  e.,  the  present  object  means  something.  When 

^  Locke  speaks  of  clear  and  obscure,  distinct  and  confused,  adequate 
and  inadequate  ideas,  he  is  talking  about  meaning  or  significance, 
and  not  about  the  immediate  objects  before  the  mind. 

12.  IDEAS  AND  SENSATIONS.  We  saw,  while  discussing  ideas  as 
modifications  of  mind,  how  Locke  uses  perception  and  sensation  as 
equivalent  to  idea.  This  use  of  these  terms  is  hard  to  justify. 

^There  is  an  idea  of  perception,  of  course,  but  perception  is  not  an 
idea.  This  loose  way  of  using  perception  and  sensation  can  lead 
only  to  confusion,  and  whenever  they  are  found  with  articles  the 
or  a,  they  should  be  translated  into  the  exact  terms  signified. 
"Thus  the  perception,"  he  says,  "which  actually  accompanies,  and 
is  annexed  to  any  impression  on  the  body,  made  by  an  external 
object,  being  distinct  from  all  other  modifications  of  thinking,  fur- 
nishes the  mind  with  a  distinct  idea,  which  we  call  sensation ; 
which  is,  as  it  were,  the  actual  entrance  of  any  idea  into  the  under- 
standing by  the  senses."*  ;rThis  probably  means  that  when  the  . 
mind  has  an  idea  which  is  caused  by  or  annexed  to  an  impression 
on  the  body  made  by  an  external  object,  the  mind  has  the  power 
to  observe  this  having-an-idea-so-caused  as  a  distinct  object  or 
idea.  Having-an-idea-so-caused  is  perception,  so  if  we  call  it  sen- 
sation, sensation  is  a  part  of  perception.  Neither  one  is  an  object 
at  first,  both  can  be  objects  when  the  mind  reflects  upon  its  own 
processes.  We  can  not  say  we  have  a  sensation  in  the  sense  that 
we  have  an  object  or  idea.  All  we  can  say  is  that  we  have  the  idea 
of  perception  or  sensation.  The  only  valid  use  of  the  term  "sensa- 
tion" is  that  it  is  that  part  of  perception  which  refers  to  the 
mind's  having  ideas  caused  by  or  annexed  to  impressions  on  the 
body  by  an  external  object.  Sensation  or  perception  is  the  power 
or  quality  of  the  mind  by  virtue  of  which  the  mind  has  ideas. 
Sensation  or  perception  is  to  be  considered  in  the  light  of  some- 

•II.    xix.    1. 


Iff  A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


thing  the  mind  does  or  of  something  that  happens  to  it.  It  is  a 
process,  not  an  object.  Locke  himself  says,  "the  perception  of 
ideas  being  (as  I  conceive)  to  the  soul,  what  motion  is  to  the  body, 
not  its  essence,  but  one  of  its  operations.**  If  the  mind  is  in- 
tently occupied  it  takes  no  notice  of  impressions  coming  through 
the  sense  inlets.  "Want  of  sensation,  in  this  case,"  he  says,  "is  not 
through  any  defect  of  the  organ,"  etc.  "And  so  imprinting  no 
idea  in  the  mind,  there  follows  no  sensation."f  Here,  he  probably 
means  that  "sense"  or  "sensation,"  which  he  equates  with  "per- 
ception," is  the-having-an-idea,  the  experiencing,  not  the  object 
experienced.  Since  we  have  ideas  of  another  class  or  from  an- 
other source,  sensation  is  one  class  of  ideas,  referred  to  the  sense 
"inlets"  and  their  source  or  cause.  "This  great  source  of  most  of 
the  ideas  we  have,  depending  wTholly  upon  our  senses,  and  derived 
by.  them  to  the  understanding,  I  call  Sensation. "t 

But  Locke  has  at  least  two  other  meanings  for_sensations. 
In  the  first  place,  they  are  the  same  thing  as  ideas.  Speaking  of 
secondary  qualities,  he  says  they  are  nothing  but  the  powers  "in 
things  to  excite  certain  sensations  or  ideas  in  us."§  "Those  ideas 
of  whiteness  and  coldness,  pain,  etc.,  being  in  us  the  effects  of 
powers  in  things  without  us,  ordained  by  our  Maker,  to  produce  in 
us  such  sensations,  they  are  real  ideas  in  us,  whereby  we  distin- 
guish the  qualities  that  are  really  in  things  themselves."**  In 
showing  the  radical  difference  between  knowledge  about  and  ac- 
quaintance with,  between  the  idea  of  the  cause  of  light  and  the 
idea  of  light  itself,  sensation  appears  to  be  merely  content,  i.  e., 
idea.  He  says,  "For  the  cause  of  any  sensation,  and  the  sensation 
itself,  in  all  the  simple  ideas  of  one  sense,  are  two  ideas ;  and  two 
ideas  so  different  and  distant  from  one  another,  that  no  two  can 
be  more  so."ft 

In  the  next  place  sensation  means  some  impression  or  motion 
in  the  body,  some  disturbance  in  the  sense  organ  or  nervous  sys- 
tem or  perhaps  an  agitation  of  the  animal  spirits.  At  any  rate, 
the  sensation  is  not  in  the  mind  but  in  the  body.  It  appears  to  be 

•*II.   1.    10.  "••II.  xxx.   2. 

til.  Ix.  4.  §n.  xxxi.   2. 

tn.  i.  s.  ttin.  iv.  10. 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  17 


the  bodily  correlate  of  the  ideal  "If  it  shall  be  demanded,  then, 
when  a  man  begins  to  have  any  ideas?  I  think  the  true  answer 
is,  when  he  first  has  any  sensation.  For  since  there  appear  not  to 
be  any  ideas  in  the  mind,  before  the  senses  have  conveyed  any  in, 
I  conceive  that  ideas  in  the  understanding  are  coeval  with  the 
sensation ;  which  is  such  an  impression  or  motion,  made  in  some 
part  of  the  body,  as  produces  some  perception  in  the  understand- 
ing/'* In  speaking  of  the  same  water  feeling  hot  to  one  hand  and 
cold  to  the  other  he  says,  "for  if  we  imagine  warmth,  as  it  is  in 
our  hands,  to  be  nothing  but  a  certain  sort  and  degree  of  motion 
in  the  minute  particles  of  our  nerves  or  "animal  spirits,  we  may 
understand  how  it  is  possible  that  the  same  water  may,  at  the 
same  time,  produce  the  sensations  of  heat  in  one  hand  and  cold  in 
the  other."f  The  sensation,  we  see,  is  in  the  hand,  not  in  the 
mind,  and  that  the  heat  sensation  consists  of  motion  in  the  minute 
particles  of  the  nerves  or  animal  spirits,  and  the  cold  sensation  a 
less  active  motion. 

13.  SIMPLE  IDEAS  AS  GIVEN,  ft  look  at  a  tree.  It  is  an  object 
before  the  mind,  a  complex  of  colors,  etc.,  and  my  mind  may  be 
said  to  be  occupied  about  it.  In  this  experience  I  can  distinguish 
two  separate  provinces  or  fields  of  this  occupation,  viz.,  external 
sense  and  internal  sense.J  These  two  kinds  of  occupation  or 
thinking  are  called  by  Locke,  respectively,  ideas  from  sensation 
and  ideas  from  reflection.  Ideas  of  the  one  sort  are  just  external 
things  of  the  common-sense  physical  world  which  are  objects  be- 
fore the  mind ;  and  ideas  of  the  other  sort  are  those  objects  which 
the  mind  has  when  it  reflects  or  observes  its  own  processes  or  occu- 
pation when  it  has  ideas^ 

LAmong  ideas  from  sensation,  or  ideas  from  reflection,  there 
may  be  distinguished,  thinks  Locke,  two  kinds  of  ideas,  viz., 
simple  ideas  and  complex  ideas.  When  my  mind  is  said  to  be  occu- 
pied about  a  tree,  there  are  certain  unchanging  elementary  objects 
in  my  mind,  certain  atomic  unanalyzable  sensations,  as  greenness, 

*II.    i.    23. 
til.   viii.   21. 

tn.  i.  4. 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


grayness,  roughness,  smoothness,  sheer  odors  and  sounds.  These 
are  simple  ideas.  There  are  other  objects,  which  are  groups  or 
combinations  of  these  "sensa,"  of  varying  degrees  of  complexity 
and  relationship,  such  as  bark,  leaves,  rustling  of  leaves,  ''woodsy" 
odor,  or  even  the  tree  itself.  These  are  complex  ideas.  Among 
ideas  from  reflection  there  is  the  same  distinction  between  simple 
and  complex  ideas.  Suppose  I  am  sitting  under  a  tree  and  an 
apple  falls  to  the  ground.  I  pick  up  the  apple,  estimate  its  weight, 
look  up  into  the  tree  and  calculate  its  final  velocity,  and  at  last 
formulate  a  law  of  motion.  When  I  tell  my  neighbor  about  this 
experience,  I  illustrate  simple  and  complex  ideas  from  reflection, 
In  the  first  place  my  mind  was  occupied  about  the  apple,  i.  e.,  I 
perceived  the  apple.  But  as  Locke  says,  "it  being  impossible  for 
any  one  to  perceive,  without  perceiving  that  he  does  perceive,*  I 
get  the  simple  object  perceiving-that-I-perceive,  which  is  the  first 
simple  idea  from  reflection.  If  in  my  occupation  about  the  apple, 
I  doubt  or  believe,  my  reflection  upon  these  furnishes  me  with  two 
other  simple  ideas  from  reflection.  In  these  cases,  the  mind's 
operation  about  its  object  is  observed  by  the  mind  itself  as  an 
operation.  A  complex  idea  from  reflection  is  the  result  of  a  com- 
bination, separation,  or  comparison  of  these  simple  objects  of 
thinking.  Thus,  in  telling  my  neighbor  my  experience,  recounting 
my  difficulties,  hopes,  fears,  and  at  last  my  solution,  that  experi- 
ence, regarded  as  a  whole,  is  clearly  a  complex  of  the  simple  ideas 
from  reflection/ 

Apparently  simple  ideas  are  as  obvious  to  Locke  as  the  grains 
in  a  heap  of  sand  or  the  bteads  of  a  rosary.  They  enter  by  the 
senses,  simple  and  unmixed.  The  coldness  of  ice,  the  whiteness  of 
a  lily,  the  taste  of  sugar,  or  the  smell  of  a  rose,  are  clear  and  dis- 
tinct, i.  e.,  pure  and  unanalyzable.f  They  are  the  simplest  forms 
we  apprehend  in  perception.  They  are  as  obvious  "to  children, 
idiots,  and  a  great  part  of  mankind,"  and  to  philosophers,  as  the 
stars  and  the  sun... 

14.  As  THE  RESULT  OF  ANALYSIS.  What  are  some  of  these 
simple  ideas,  say,  from  external  sense?  Locke  says  they  are 

*H.  xxvii.  9. 
til.   ii.   1. 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  19 


whiteness,  sweetness,  coldness,  hardness,  etc.    Now,  how  are  we 
going  to  point  out  to  a  child  whiteness,  for  example,  simple  and 
unmixed?    Who,  even  among  philosophers,  ever  saw  just  white- 
ness?   Simple  ideas  of  this  sort  are  not  a  part  of  our  experience. 
There  are  no  instances  of  such  simple  ideas.    What  we  show  the 
child  is  white  milk,  or  white  sugar.   ;  Whiteness  is  the  product  of   ( 
analysis,  not  of  direct  apprehension.    "It  is  true,"  he  is  compelled    ! 
to  say,  "solidity  can  not  exist  without  extension,  neither  can  scar- 
let colour  exist  without  extension;  but  this  hinders  not  but  they 
are  distinct  ideas.    Many  ideas  require  others  as  necessary  to  their   \ 
existence  or  conception,  which  yet  are  very  distinct  ideas."*    To 
see  white  as  such,  without  the  mixture  or  association  of  any  other 
idea,  one  would  have  to  experience  it  without  size  or  shape. 

Simple  ideas  from  reflection  are  still  more  difficult  to  substan- 
tiate. Experience  gives  us  no  pure  perception,  or  believing,  or 
thinking  but  all  these  are  operations  of  one  mind  impossible  of 
being  immediately  apprehended  as  separate  and  simple.  These 
simple  ideas  are  what  the  mind  finds  when  it  reflects  upon  and 
generalizes  its  own  processes.  Obviously  simple  ideas  are  found 
only  by  analysis. 

In  summing  up  "the  steps  by  which  the  mind  attains  several 
truths"  he  says,  "the  senses  at  first  let  in  particular  ideas,  and 
furnish  the  yet  empty  cabinet ;  and  the  mind  by  degrees  growing 
familiar  with  some  of  them,  they  are  lodged  in  the  memory,  and 
names  got  to  them:  afterward  the  mind,  proceeding  farther.  al>/ 
stracts  them,  and  by  degrees  LearnaJthfiLjjse  of  general  name^"tj 
Again  he  says,  "ideas  become  general,  by  separating  from  them'\ 
the  circumstances  of  time,  and  place,  and  any  other  ideas  that! 
may  determine  them  to  this  or  to  that  particular  existence.":}:    As  j 
a  matter  of  fact,  the  examples  of  simple  ideas  that  Locke  gives,  i 
are  just  the  general  ideas  or  abstractions,  which  he  here  declares 
come  before  the  mind  as  distinct  objects  only  after  a  series  of  pre- 
liminary steps.    Whiteness  is  a  general  idea  which  has  to  be  ab- 
stracted from  a  number  of  instances  of  white  things.     There  is 

•II.   viii.    11. 
tl.   ii.   15. 
till.  iiL   6. 


*u 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


thus  no  evidence  that  the  elements  into  which  we  may  analyze 
sensational  data  are  at  any  time  in  the  mind  as  pure  unmixed 
elements.] 

15.  IDEAS  ACCORDING  TO  LOCKE,  MAY  THEREFORE  SIGNIFY  : 

1.  Immediate  objects  of  the  mind  as  content. 

2.  Immediate  objects  of  the  mind  as  modifications  of  itself. 

3.  The  meaning  of  these  immediate  objects. 

£.  These  objects  regarded  as  immediately  apprehended. 

5.  These  objects  regarded  as  the  result  of  analysis  or  abstraction. 

16.  SUBSTANCE.    When  Locke  is  most  empirical,  the  idea  of  sub- 
stance appears  to  be  little  more  than  a  fancy,  the  supposition  of 
an  unknowable  substratum ;  but  when  he  is  most  rationalistic,  he 
makes  much  of  it.    There  are  three  kinds  of  substance  and  it  has 
various  qualities  which  he  enumerates.     His  empirical  account 
may  be  outlined  as  follows:     The  idea  of  substance  arises  from 
the  fact  that  the  mind  observes  "that  a  certain  number  of  these 
simple  ideas  go  constantly  together ;  which  being  presumed  to  be- 
long to  one  thing,  and  words  being  suited  to  common  apprehen- 
sions, and  made  use  of  for  quick  dispatch  are  called,  so  united  in 
one  subject,  by  one  name;  which  by  inadvertency,  we  are  apt 
afterward  to  talk  of  and  consider  as  one  simple  idea,  which  is 
indeed  a  complication  of  many  ideas  toether:  because,  as  I  have 
said,  not  imagining  how  these  simple  ideas  can  subsist  by  them- 
selves, we  accustom  ourselves  to  suppose  some  substratum  where- 
in they  do  subsist,  and  from  which  they  do  result,  and  which, 
therefore,  we  call  substance."*    The  substance,  then,  of  any  con- 
stant group  of  ideas,  for  example  iron,  is  just  the  name  of  this 
group,  considered  as  a  group,  applied  to  it  for  the  sake  of  con- 
venience; just  as  it  is  a  matter  of  economy  to  speak  of  the  Smiths 
or  Browns  instead  of  naming  each  member  of  the  family.     The 
substance  of  iron  is  merely  a  short-hand  expression  for  a  group 
of  ideas  that  go  constantly  together.     Common  sense,  of  course, 
speaks  inadvertently  of  iron  or  wood  as  if  that  meant  something 
more.    But  when  questioned  it  must  answer,  "I  know  not  what." 

*II.   xxiii.    1. 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  21 


There  is  really  no  idea  of  substance,  but  only  a  supposition,  a  trick 
of  language,  due  to  the  practical  needs  of  speech.  The  affirmation 
of  a  substance  or  substratum  is  only  a  verbal  proposition.  It 
amounts  to  the  proposition  "x  exists,"  where  x  means  merely  a 
certain  constant  group  of  ideas.  The  only  demand  for  such  a  sub- 
stratum is  that  any  x  about  which  we  affirm  or  deny  anything 
must  exist.  When  this  x  is  critically  examined  the  demand  van- 
ishes. The  inconsistency  in  the  idea  of  substance  Locke  does  not 
hesitate  to  point  out.  "If  any  one  should  be  asked,  what  is  the 
subject  wherein  color  or  weight  inheres?  he  would  have  nothing 
to  say,  but  the  solid  extended  parts:  and  if  he  were  demanded, 
what  is  it  that  solidity  and  extension  inhere  in?  he  would  not 
be  in  a  much  better  case  than  the  Indian  before  mentioned,  who, 
saying  the  world  was  supported  by  a  great  elephant,  was  asked 
what  the  elephant  rested  on?  to  which  his  answer  was  a  great 
tortoise.  But  being  again  pressed  to  know  what  gave  support  to 
the  broad-backed  tortoise  replied,  something  he  knew  not  what. 
And  thus  here,  as  in  all  cases  where  we  use  words  without  having 
clear  and  distinct  ideas,  we  talk  like  children;  who  being  ques- 
tioned what  such  a  thing  is  which  they  know  not,  readily  give  this 
satisfactory  answer,  that  it  is  something;  which,  in  truth,  signifies 
no  more,  when  so  used,  either  by  children  or  men,  but  that  they 
know  not  what;  and  that  the  thing  they  pretend  to  know  and 
talk  of,  is  what  they  have  no  distinct  idea  of  at  all,  and  so  are 
perfectly  ignorant  of  it,  and  in  the  dark."**  The  demand  for  a 
substratum,  Locke  thus  shows,  is  childish  and  contradictory. f 

Those  who  pretend  to  get  more  out  of  substance  than  simple 
ideas  are  taking  words  for  things.J  They  feign  knowledge  where 
they  have  none,  "by  making  a  noise  with  sounds,  without  clear 
and  distinct  significations."  "They  who  first  ran  into  the  notion 
of  accidents  as  a  sort  of  real  beings  that  needed  something  to  in- 
here in,  were  forced  to  find  out  the  word  substance  to  support 
them.*  *  *  *  And  he  that  inquired  might  have  taken  it  for  as  good 
an  answer  from  the  Indian  philosopher,  that  substance,  without 
knowing  what  it  is,  is  that  which  supports  the  earth,  as  we  take 

**II.  xxiil.  2. 
tn.  xxlii.  87. 
JII.  xiii.  18. 


22  A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


it  for  a  sufficient  answer,  and  good  doctrine,  from  our  European 
philosophers,  that  substance,  without  knowing  what  it  is,  is  that 
which  supports  accidents.  So  that  of  substance  we  have  no  idea 
of  what  it  is,  but  only  a  confused  obscure  one  of  what  it  does."* 
Substance  is  thus  a  word,  not  an  idea.  It  is  a  name  for  something 
that  occurs  among  ideas.  It  devolves  upon  those  that  use  the 
word,  thinks  Locke,  to  show  of  what  use  it  is  in  deciding  questions 
of  philosophy. t  For  Locke,  the  term  explains  nothing,  but  is  a 
mockery.  It  is  as  if  one  should  say  all  learned  books  consist  of 
paper  and  letters,  and  that  letters  are  things  inhering  in  paper, 
and  paper  a  thing  that  holds  forth  letters — "a  notable  way  of 
having  clear  ideas  of  letters  and  paper!"  On  the  other  hand, 
when  this  problem  of  substance  is  brought  squarely  before  him  by 
Stillingfleet,  Locke  gives  up  his  empiricism.  Notwithstanding 
that  he  affirms  over  and  over  again  that  we  can  know  nothing 
beyond  our  simple  ideas,  and  that  our  ideas  of  substances  are  con- 
fused, childish,  and  born  of  ignorance,  yet,  almost  in  the  same 
paragraph  he  asserts  that  "sensation  convinces  us  that  there  are 
solid  extended  substances,  and  reflection,  that  there  are  thinking 
ones;  experience  assures  us  of  the  existence  of  such  beings,  and 
that  the  one  hath  a  power  to  move  body  by  impulse,  the  other  by 
thought;  this  we  can  not  doubt  of.  Experience,  I  say,  every 
moment  furnishes  us  with  the  clear  ideas  both  of  the  one  and  the 
other."  And  notwithstanding  that  the  demand  for  an  outside 
cause  of  what  is  present  in  experience  leads  to  the  indefinite  re- 
gress of  the  elephant  and  tortoise,  and  that  such  an  explanation 
not  only  is  obscure  and  confused  but  is  a  mockery,  yet  he  affirms 
that  God,  that  being  who  possesses  infinite  power,  wisdom,  excel- 
lence, and  all  the  virtues  known  to  man  raised  to  the  nth  power, 
exists  as  the  upholder  and  ruler  of  the  universe  because  what  is 
present  in  experience  must  have  an  adequate  cause.  Far  from 
being  obscure,  the  existence  and  attributes  of  God  partake  of  the 
clearness  and  certainty  of  mathematical  demonstration.}  Still- 
ingfleet justly  inferred  from  Locke's  account  that  substance  is 

*TT     y^j      1Q 
til.     Xill.     20. 

JIV.   x.   1-7. 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  23 


not  grounded  upon  true  reason.    Accidents  and  modes  must,  there- 
fore, subsist  of  themselves.     Simple  ideas  need  no  tortoise  to 
support  them,  and  could  get  along  very  well  by  themselves  but 
for  some  fancies  men  have  accustomed  themselves  to.     In  reply, 
Locke  says  that  ideas  of  substances  are  made  by  abstraction,* 
although  he  admits  that  what  he  says  in  Chapter  XXIII,  might 
lead  one  to  suppose  that  he  held  they  were  not.    What  he  is  really 
talking  about  here  is,  not  the  being  of  substance,  but  the  idea  of 
substance.    "I  cannot  be  supposed  to  question  or  doubt  the  being 
of  substance."     "So  that,  I  think,  the  being  of  substance  is  not 
shaken  by  what  I  have  said ;  and  if  the  idea  of  it  should  be,  yet, 
(the  being  of  things  depending  not  on  our  ideas)  the  being  of 
substance  would  not  be  all  shaken  by  my  saying,  we  had  but  an 
obscure  imperfect  idea  of  it,  and  that  that  idea  came  from  our 
accustoming  ourselves  to  suppose  some  substratum :  or  indeed,  if 
I  should  say  so,  we  had  no  idea  of  substance  at  all.    For  a  great 
many  things  may  be,  and  are  granted  to"  have  a  being,  and  be  in 
nature,  of  which  we  have  no  ideas.    For  example :    It  can  not  be 
doubted  that  there  are  distinct  species  of  separate  spirits,  of 
which  yet  we  have  no  distinct  ideas  at  all."t     In  his  chapter  ne 
throws  the  burden  of  proof  on  those  philosophers  who  uphold 
substance ;  here,  in  his  letter,  he  shifts  the  responsibility.  Locke's 
objection  to  substance  was  not,  primarily,  that  the  idea  of  it  is 
confused,  but  that  when  critically  examined  there  is  no  logical 
demand  for  it;  that  if  we  entertain  the  idea,  provisionally,  we 
see  that  it  leads  to  an  indefinite  regress;  and  that  in  asking  for 
a  substance  as  the  support  of  ideas,  we  are  asking  for  we  know 
not  what,  and  are  fooling  ourselves  with  a  mere  word.    Now,  he 
says,  because  our  idea  of  substance  is  confused,  or  because  we 
have  no  idea  of  it  at  all,  is  no  proof  that  there  is  no  substance. 
He  says,  in  his  first  letter  to  the  Bishop  of  Worcester,  that  he  has 
everywhere  affirmed  and  built  upon  the  supposition  that  a  man  is 
a  substance.     The  idea  of  man  as  an  identical  substance,  either 
material  or  spiritual,  he  readily  admits  is  otiose  and  childish,  but 

*III.   iii.   6.,   II._ii.   9. 

rsz  i.euer  to  .tJTshop  of  Worcester.) 


24  A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


the  being  of  man  as  such  a  substance,  he  maintains,  he  has  never 
doubted,  and  that  nothing-  he  has  said  about  tne  imperfect  and 
ill-grounded  idea  in  the  least  applies  to  the  being  of  man  as  a  sub- 
stance. The  expression  "idea  of  man  as  a  substance"  appears, 
from  his  discussion,  to  be  one  of  those  "uncouth,  "affected,"  and 
"unintelligible"  terms,  one  of  those  "vague  and  insignificant  forms 
of  speech,  and  abuse  of  language,"  from  which  can  be  expected 
nothing  but  "obscurity  and  confusion."*  But  when  we  talk  about 
the  being  of  man,  is  not  that  something  the  mind  considers?  Is 
not  the  mind  employed  about  that,  and  as  an  object  of  thinking, 
is  it  not  an  idea?  In  short  how  can  we  consider  the  being  of 
substance  apart  from  the  idea  of  substance?  Locke  would  prob- 
ably say  that  idea  of  substance  is  different  from  the  idea  of  being 
of  substance.  What  is  the  difference?  The  idea  of  man  as  a  sub- 
stance, he  has  shown,  is  confused  and  useless.  Now,  if  we  are 
to  turn  about  and  affirm  and  build  upon  the  idea  of  man  as  a 
substance,  all  our  careful  reasoning,  all  our  precise  choice  of 
words,  and  all  our  trouble  to  get  clear  and  distinct  ideas,  come 
to  naught.  With  this  distinction  between  idea  and  being,  the 
great  master  builders,  Boyle,  Sydenham,  and  Newton,  could  have 
been  vanquished.  Let  some  one  say  to  Newton :  "I  have  the  idea 
of  a  round  square."  If  Newton  objects  that  his  idea  is  ill-grounded 
and  confused  and  absolutely  useless  in  science  and  practical 
affairs,  he  could,  after  the  manner  of  Locke,  reply,  "I  admit  that 
the  idea  is  confused,  ill-grounded,  and  useless;  I  will  admit  fur- 
ther, on  second  thought,  that  I  have  no  idea  of  it  at  all,  but  this 
is  nothing  against  its  being.  The  being  of  a  round  square  is  what 
I  affirm  and  build  upon."  The  difference  then  between  the  idea  of 
man  as  a  substance  and  the  idea  of  the  being  of  man  as  a  sub- 
stance is,  that,  in  discarding  the  one  as  ill-grounded  and  useless, 
I  am  trying  to  be  rational,  and  in  accepting  the  other  I  have  given 
up  being  rational. 

17.  MIND.    "We  have  the  idea  of  but  three  sorts  of  substances," 

*  (Epistle   to   the   reader.) 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OP  KNOWLEDGE  25 


says  Locke:  "1.  God.  2.  Finite  intelligences.  3.  Bodies."*  Since, 
of  course,  he  holds  that  they  exist,  there  are  consequently,  three 
sorts  of  beings.  But  clearly  this  is  not  the  most  fundamental 
classification.  In  a  fundamental  sense  God  and  finite  intelligences 
are  in  the  same  class.  It  is  better  to  take  what  he  says  in  another 
place.  "There  are/'  he  says,  "but  two  sorts  of  beings  in  the  world, 
that  man  knows  or  conceives.  First,  such  as  are  purely  material, 
without  sense,  perception,  or  thought,  as  the  clippings  of  our 
beards,  or  parings  of  our  nails.  Secondly,  sensible,  thinking,  per- 
ceiving beings,  such  as  we  find  ourselves  to  be,  which,  if  you 
please,  we  will  hereafter  call  cognitive  and  incognitive  beings ; 
which  to  our  present  purpose,  if  for  nothing  else,  are  perhaps 
better  terms  than  material  and  immaterial."!  Tha*t  God  is  in  the 
same  general  class  with  finite  beings  appears  from  our  idea  of 
Him.  From  our  experience  we  get  the  ideas  of  infinity,  existence, 
duration,  power,  knowledge,  pleasure,  happiness,  and  several  other 
qualities  and  powers.  Among  these  ideas  we  find  there  are  some 
"which  it  is  better  to  have  than  to  be  without."  Enlarging  these 
to  infinity,  and  putting  them  together  in  a  complex  idea,  we  have 
the  idea  of  God. J  God  is  thus  an  idealized  man ;  and  in  a  funda- 
mental classification  would  have  to  be  classed  as  a  cognitive  being. 
There  are  then  two  kinds  of  being,  cognitive  and  incognitive. 
But  when  Locke  comes  to  consider  the  stuff  of  cognitive  beings 
he  is  very  cautious.  "We  have  the  ideas  of  matter  and  thinking," 
he  says,  "but  possibly  shall  ne'ver  be  able  to  know,  whether  any 
mere  material  being  thinks  or  no ;  it  being  impossible  for  us,  by 
the  contemplation  of  our  ideas  without  revelation,  to  discover, 
whether  omnipotency  has  not  given  to  some  systems  of  matter, 
fitly  disposed,  a  power  to  perceive  and  think,  or  else  joined  and 
fixed  to  matter  so  disposed,  a  thinking  immaterial  substance;  it 
being,  in  respect  to  our  notions,  not  much  more  remote  from  our 
comprehension  to  conceive,  that  God  can,  if  he  pleases,  superadd 
to  matter  the  faculty  of  thinking;  since  we  know  not  wherein 
thinking  consists,  nor  to  what  sort  of  substances  the  Almighty 

•II.   xxxii.    2. 

trv.  x.  9. 

tn.  xxiii.   33. 


26  A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


has  been  pleased  to  give  that  power,  which  can  not  be  in  any 
created  being,  but  merely  by  the  good  pleasure  and  bounty  of  the 
Creator/'* 

"I  grant  that  I  have  not  proved,"  he  writes  to  the  Bishop  of 
Worcester,  "nor,  upon  my  principles  can  it  be  proved  (your  Lord- 
ship meaning,  as  I  think  you  do,  demonstratively  proved),  that 
there  is  an  immaterial  substance  in  us  that  thinks.  Though  I  pre- 
sume, from  what  I  have  said  about  this  supposition  of  a  system  of 
matter,  thinking  (which  there  demonstrates  that  God  is  immate- 
rial) will  prove  it  in  the  highest  degree  probable,  that  the  thinking 
substance  in  us,  is  immaterial." 

The  nature  of  the  mind,  or  that  which  thinks,  according  to 
Locke,  at  this  place,  is  unknown  to  us.  It  may  be  material  or  it 
may  be  immaterial,  he  does  not  know,  but  probably  the  latter. 
Empirically,  it  is  "that  which  thinks."  Taken  in  conjunction 
with  what  he  says  about  substance,  that  it  is  merely  a  name  ap- 
plied to  certain  group  of  ideas,  and  is  nothing  apart  from  thi 
simple  ideas  themselves,  the  mind  means  nothing  more  than  the 
system  of  ideas  from  reflection;  just  a  center  of  experience,  which 
for  convenience,  we  speak  of  as  a  substantial  being  which  has 
experience.  The  substance  of  a  horse  or  a  stone  is  just  the  com- 
plication or  collection  of  certain  simple  ideas.  So,  "the  same 
happens  concerning  the  operations  of  the  mind,  viz. :  thinking, 
reasoning,  fearing,  etc.,  which  we,  concluding  not  to  subsist  of 
themselves,  nor  apprehending  how  they  can  belong  to  body,  or  be 
produced  by  it,  we  are  apt  to  think  these  the  actions  of  some  other 
substance,  which  we  call  spirit :  whereby  it  is  evident,  that  having 
no  other  idea  or  notion  of  matter,  but  something  wherein  those 
many  sensible  qualities  which  affect  our  senses,  do  subsist;  by 
supporting  a  substance,  wherein  thinking,  knowing,  doubting,  and 
a  power  of  moving,  etc.,  do  subsist,  we  have  as  clear  a  notion  of 
the  substance  of  spirit,  as  we  have  of  the  body;  the  one  thing  sup- 
posed to  be  (without  knowing  what  it  is)  the  substratum  to  those 
simple  ideas  we  have  from  without;  and  the  other  supposed  (with 

•IV.   iii.   6. 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  27 


a  like  ignorance  of  what  it  is)  to  be  the  substratum  to  those  oper- 
ations we  experience  in  ourselves  within."*  Mind  may  mean, 
therefore,  nothing  more  than  the  unity  of  experience,  a  system,  a 
center,  or  a  law  of  experience. 

The  mind  or  self  according  to  this  interpretation  of  Locke, 
appears  to  be  the  empirically  discovered  form  or  system  in  the 
ideas  from  reflection.  The  mind  is  not  an  entity  over  against  its 
ideas,  something  got  by  abstraction,  but  a  recognized  system  or 
organization  of  these  ideas,  i.  e.,  it  is  concrete  not  abstract.  This 
interpretation  is  rendered  more  probable  by  Locke's  discussion 
of  the  identity  of  self.  Identity  of  the  self  does  not  consist,  ac- 
cording to  Locke,  in  an  identity  of  soul  substance,  either  material 
or  immaterial.  It  is  the  consciousness  that  I  am  the  same  self 
that  I  was  yesterday,  that  gives  personal  identity.  If  this  con- 
sciousness is  present,  if  the  thinking  remembers  and  owns  a  series 
of  past  actions,  the  self  persists,  and  the  actions  are  the  actions 
of  an  identical  self.  "Self,"  he  says,  "is  that  conscious  thinking 
thing  (whatever  substance  made  of,  whether  spiritual  or  material, 
simple  or  compound,  it  matters  not)  which  is  sensible,  or  con- 
scious of  pleasure  and  pain,  capable  of  happiness  or  misery,  and 
so  is  concerned  for  itself,  as  far  as  that  consciousness  extends. 
Thus  every  one  finds,  that  whilst  comprehended  under  that  con- 
sciousness, the  little  finger  is  as  much  a  part  of  himself,  as  what 
is  most  so.  Upon  separation  of  this  little  finger,  should  this  con- 
sciousness go  along  with  this  little  finger,  and  leave  the  rest  of  the 
body,  it  is  evident  the  little  finger  would  be  the  person,  the  same 
person ;  and  self  then  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  rest  of 
the  body.  As  in  this  case  it  is  the  consciousness  that  goes  along 
with  the  substance,  and  when  one  part  is  separate  from  another, 
which  makes  the  same  person,  and  constitutes  this  inseparable 
self;  so  it  is  in  reference  to  substances  remote  in  time.  That 
which  the  consciousness  of  this  present  thinking  thing  can  join 
itself,  makes  the  same  person,  and  is  one  self  with  it,  and  with 
nothing  else ;  and  so  attributes  to  itself,  and  owns  all  the  actions 

*II. 


28  A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


of  that  thing  as  its  own,  as  far  as  that  consciousness  reaches,  and 
no  farther;  as  every  one  who  reflects  will  perceive."*  Ideas  may 
not  occur  apart  from  some  substance  or  support,  just  as  a  phono- 
graphic record  has  to  have  a  support  of  some  kind,  something  in 
which  the  record  inheres.  The  record  may  be  made  in  wax  and 
transferred  to  tin-foil  or  vulcanite.  What  constitutes  it  the  same 
record  is  not  the  support.  The  substratum  of  ideas  may  be 
material  substance  or  spiritual  substance,  or  at  one  time  material 
and  at  another  time  spiritual,  that  is  not  the  essential  factor. 
What  constitutes  a  self  an  identical  being  is  the  consciousness  of 
the  same.  Let  us  assume  transmigration  of  souls.  "Let  any  one 
reflect  upon  himself,"  says  Locke,  "and  conclude  that  he  has  in 
himself  an  immaterial  spirit,  which  is  that  which  thinks  in  him, 
and  in  the  constant  change  of  his  body  keeps  him  the  same ;  and 
this  is  what  he  calls  himself:  let  him  also  suppose  it  to  be  the  same 
soul  that  was  in  Nestor  or  Thersites  at  the  siege  of  Troy  (for 
souls  being,  as  far  as  we  know  anything  of  them,  in  their  nature 
indifferent  to  any  parcel  of  matter,  the  supposition  has  no  appar- 
ent absurdity  in  it) ,  which  it  may  have  been,  as  weir  as  it  is  now 
the  soul  of  some  other  man :  but  he  now  having  no  consciousness  of 
any  of  the  actions  either  of  Nestor  or  Thersites,  does  or  can  he 
conceive  himself  the  same  person  with  either  of  them?"f  Lock 
thinks  not.  "The  same  immaterial  substance,  without  the  same 
consciousness,  no  more  making  the  same  person  by  being  united 
to  any  body,  than  the  same  particle  of  making  without  conscious- 
ness, united  to  anybody,  makes  the  same  person." 

On  the  other  hand,  if  the  same  consciousness  is  united  now  with 
one  soul  and  again  with  another,  the  self  will  be  identical.  If 
the  same  consciousness  "can  be  transferred  from  one  thinking 
substance  to  another,  it  will  be  possible  that  two  thinking  sub- 
stances may  make  but  one  person.  For  the  same  consciousness 
being  preserved,  whether  in  the  same  or  different  substances,  the 
personal  identity  is  preserved."} 

Locke  goes  on  to  found  the  right  to  reward  or  to  punish  upon 

•II.  xxvii.  17. 
til.  xxvil.  14. 
til.  xxvii.  13. 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  29 


this  consciousness  of  personal  identity.  "If  the  consciousness 
went  along  with  the  little  finger  when  it  was  cut  off,  that  would  be 
the  same  self  which  was  concerned  for  the  whole  body  yesterday, 
as  making  part  of  itself,  whose  actions  then  it  can  not  but  admit  as 
its  own  now."*  "If  Socrates  and  the  present  Mayor  of  Queen- 
borough  agree,  they  are  the  same  person:  if  the  same  Socrates 
waking  and  sleeping  do  not  partake  of  the  same  consciousness, 
Socrates  waking  and  sleeping  is  not  the  same  person.  And  to 
punish  Socrates  waking  for  what  sleeping  Socrates  thought,  and 
waking  Socrates  was  never  conscious  of,  would  be  no  more  right, 
than  to  punish  one  twin  for  what  his  brother  twin  did  whereof  he 
knew  nothing,  because  their  outsides  were  so  like  that  they  could 
not  be  distinguished."!  There  is  no  doubt,  therefore,  that  Locke 
means  by  identity,  not  the  same  substance,  or  continuity  of 
change,  but  identity  of  organization.  He  errs,  if  he  does  err,  in 
assuming  that  consciousness  infallibly  reveals  this  organization. 
In  illustrating  identity  from  plant  life,  he  says,  "That  being  then 
one  plant  which  has  such  an  organization  of  parts  in  one  coherent 
body  partaking  of  one  common  life,  it  continues  to  be  the  same 
plant  as  long  as  it  partakes  of  the  same  life,  though  that  life  be 
communicated  to  new  particles  of  matter  vitally  united  to  the 
HVing  plant,  in  a  like  continued  organization  conformable  to  that 
sort  of  plants.  For  this  organization  being  any  one  instant 
in  any  one  collection  of  matter,  is  in  that  particular 
concrete,  distinguished  from  all  other,  and  is  that  indiv- 
idual life  which  is  existing  constantly  from  that  moment  both 
forwards  and  backwards,  in  the  same  continuity  of  insensibly 
succeeding  parts  united  to  the  living  body  of  the  plant,  it  has  that 
identity,  which  makes  the  same  plant,  and  all  the  parts  of  it,  parts 
of  the  same  plant,  during  all  the  time  that  they  exist  united  in  that 
continued  organization,  which  is  fit  to  convey  that  common  life  to 
all  the  parts  so  united."}  So  whatever  Locke  may  imply  about  the 
infallibility  of  consciousness  in  revealing  identity,  the  funda- 

*II.   xxvii.   18. 

til.   xxvii.   19.    (Cf.   Reid,   Intel.   Pwrs.   Essay  III.    Chap.  V.) 

ill.  xxvii.   4. 


80  A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


mental  thing  is  that  the  self  is  a  ' 'concrete/'  a  coherent  organiza- 
tion, and  that  identity  must  consist  in  identity  of  organization. 
This  much  is  in  harmony  with  our  standpoint.  But  Locke  goes 
farther  in  believing  that  a  self  so  conceived  must  necessarily  be 
conscious  of  itself  as  it  is.  Just  as  it  is  impossible  for  one  to 
perceive  without  perceiving  that  he  perceives,  so  it  is  impossible 
for  a  self  to  be  a  coherent  system  without  being  conscious  of  it- 
self as  a  coherent  system.  The  self,  according  to  Locke  as  ac- 
cording to  Royce,  is  a  self-representative  system. 

Notwithstanding  Locke  affirms,  in  speaking  of  the  real  essence 
of  things,,  that  "it  is  evident  the  internal  constitution,  whereon 
their  properties  depend,  is  unknown  to  us,  'that'  our  faculties 
carry  us  on  farther  toward  the  knowledge  and  distinction  of  sub- 
stances, than  a  collection  of  those  sensible  ideas  which  we  observe 
in  them ;  which,  however,  made  with  the  greatest  diligence  and 
exactness  we  are  capable  of,  yet  it  is  more  remote  from  the  true 
internal  constitution  from  which  those  qualities  flow,  than,  as  I 
said,  a  countryman's  idea  is  from  the  inward  contrivance  of  that 
famous  clock  at  Strasburgh,  whereof  he  only  sees  the  outward 
figure  and  motions,"  and  that  "a  blind  man  may  as  soon  sort  things 
by  their  colors,  and  he  that  has  lost  his  smell  as  well  distinguish 
a  lily  and  a  rose  by  odors,  as  by  those  internal  constitutions  which 
he  knows  not,"*  yet  he  tells  us,  with  persistent  inconsistency,  that 
we  have  clear  and  distinct  ideas  of  the  kinds  of  substances,  and 
gives  us  a  list  of  their  powers  and  qualities.  The  mind  is  not 
only  a  substance,  but  it  is  a  cognitive  substance,  and  it  has  the 
qualities  or  powers  of  perception  or  thinking,  motivity,  or  the 
power  of  moving,  existence,  duration,  and  number.!  The  mind  as 
a  substance  is  thus  very  far  from  being  unknowable.  "Notwith- 
standing anything  I  have  said,"  he  writes  Stillingfleet,  "the  idea 
of  a  substance  or  substratum  is  grounded  upon  this :  That  we  can 
not  conceive  how  simple  ideas  of  sensible  qualities  should  subsist 
alone;  and  therefore  we  suppose  them  to  exist  in,  and  to  be  sup- 
ported by  some  common  subject;  which  support  we  denote  by  the 

*m.  vi.  9. 

tn.  xxi.   73, 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  31 


name  substance.'  Which,  I  think,  is  a  true  reason,  because  it  is 
the  same  your  lordship  grounds  the  supposition  of  a  substratum 
on,  in  this  very  page ;  even  on  the  repugnancy  to  our  conceptions, 
that  modes  and  accidents  should  subsist  by  themselves."  The 
point  to  be  noted  here  is  that  the  idea  of  substance  is  inferred 
according  to  true  reason.  That  is,  I  infer  my  existence  as  a  sub- 
stantial being  because  I  can  not  conceive  how  my  simple  ideas 
from  reflection  could  subsist  alone  unsupported. 

What  does  "repugnancy"  mean?  What  it  should  mean,  and 
what  it  actually  does  mean  in  Locke's  discussion  of  the  identity 
of  the  self,  is  that  we  can  not  help  regarding  the  elements  of  our 
inner  experience  as  parts  of  a  systematic  organization.  Applied 
to  both  inner  and  outer  experience,  it  means  that  we  can  not  but 
regard  the  universe  as  a  systematic  whole.  "Repugnancy"  is  the 
logical  demand  for  coherence.  But  here  Locke  interprets  it  to 
mean  the  demand  for  a  substratum.  He  implies  that  coherence 
can  be  obtained  in  no  other  way.  The  mind  or  soul,  therefore,  has 
a  substantial  existence. 

It  is  to  be  noted  that,  according  to  Locke,  we  infer  these 
qualities  or  powers  to  belong  to  the  mind  as  a  substance,  just  as 
we  infer  the  substance  of  mind  itself,  from  the  actual  presence  of 
the  simple  ideas  from  reflection.  "It  is  plain,"  he  says,  "then, 
that  the  will  is  nothing  but  one  power  or  ability,  and  freedom 
another  power  or  ability ;  so  that  to  ask,  whether  the  will  has  free- 
dom, is  to  ask  whether  one  power  has  another  power,  one  ability 
another  ability?  a  question  at  first  sight  too  grossly  absurd  to 
make  a  dispute,  or  need  an  answer.  For  who  is  it  that  sees  not 
that  powers  belong  only  to  agents,  and  are  attributes  only  of  sub- 
stances, and  not  of  powers  themselves?"*  Thus  we  infer  that 
there  is  a  soul  substance  because  we  can  not  conceive  the  simple 
ideas  from  reflection  as  uncaused  or  unsupported  by  a  substratum 
or  a  substance.  Likewise  we  infer  that  this  soul  substance  has  the 
various  powers  and  attributes  which  are  present  in  our  experience 
as  simple  ideas  from  reflection ;  because  such  powers  can  not  but 

•II.    xxi.    16. 


32  A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


be  powers  of  an  agent,  and  such  attributes  attributes  of  a  sub- 
stance. I  am  what  the  powers  and  attributes  of  my  soul  substance 
are.  If  I  can  think  clearly  and  perceive  distinctly  that  is  because 
my  soul  substance  possesses  the  power  of  thinking  and  the  power 
of  perceiving  in  a  high  degree  of  perfection.  Every  peculiarity  of 
thought,  every  trick  of  expression,  every  idiosyncrasy  of  character 
or  action,  is  due  to  an  oddity  or  peculiarity  among  the  powers  or 
attributes  of  my  soul  substance.  If  I  reason  today  in  the  same 
manner  that  I  reasoned  yesterday,  or  if  I  speak  today  with  the 
fluency  or  hesitation  with  which  I  spoke  yesterday,  that  is  because 
the  powers  or  attributes  of  my  soul  substance  act  today  in  the 
same  manner  they  acted  yesterday.  What  I  call  my  personality 
depends  wholly  upon  the  powers  and  attributes  of  my  substantial 
soul.  If  "I  am  the  same  I  that  I  was  yesterday  it  is  because  my 
soul  substance  with  its  powers  and  attributes  is  the  same.  If  I 
am  not  the  same  it  is  because  it  is  not  the  same.  Personal  identity, 
thus,  depends  upon  identity  of  soul  substance.  To  assume  the 
same  consciousness  or  self  to  persist  with  a  changing  or  with  an 
altogether  different  soul  substance,  or  vice  versa,  would  be  "too 
grossly  absurd  to  make  a  dispute." 

Locke  clinches  the  substantial  existence  of  the  soul  with  an 
argument  very  like  that  of  St.  Augustine  or  Descartes.  The  soul 
is  not  only  inferred  but  its  existence  is  intuitively  known.  This 
knowledge  is  comparable  only  to  the  intuitive  knowledge  of  ideas 
themselves.  "As  for  our  own  existence,  we  perceive  it  is  so 
plainly,  and  so  certainly,  that  it  neither  needs  nor  is  capable  of 
proof.  For  nothing  can  be  more  evident  to  us  than  our  own 
existence ;  I  think,  I  reason,  I  feel  pleasure  and  pain :  can  any  of 
these  be  more  eVident  to  me  than  my  own  existence?  If  I  doubt 
of  all  other  things,  that  very  doubt  makes  me  perceive  my  own 
existence  and  will  not  suffer  me  to  doubt  that.  For  if  I  know  I 
feel  pain,  it  is  evident  I  have  as  certain  perception  of  my  own  ex- 
istence, as  of  the  existence  of  the  pain  I  feel,  or  if  I  know  I  doubt, 
I  have  as  certain  perception  of  the  existence  of  the  thing  doubting, 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  33 


as  of  that  thought  which  I  call  doubt.  Experience  then  convinces 
us  that  we  have  an  intuitive  knowledge  of  our  own  existence,  and 
an  internal  infallible  perception  that  we  are.  In  every  act  of 
sensation,  reasoning,  of  thinking,  we  are  conscious  to  ourselves  of 
our  own  being;  and,  in  this  matter,  come  not  short  of  the  highest 
degree  of  certainty."*  The  "I"  referred  to  here  is,  of  course,  am- 
biguous. It  may  refer  to  the  soul,  the  cognitive  substance,  or  it 
may  refer  to  the  empirical  self,  the  "concrete"  of  ideas  from  reflec- 
tion, the  systematic  unity  in  thinking.  Upon  reflection  we  see 
there  is  a  coherent  organization  in  our  inner  experience,  which 
gives  a  meaning  to  the  "myself"  and  "I"  of  conversation.  Locke, 
it  seems,  referred  to  the  former  meaning.  Man  "knows  certainly 
that  he  exists,  and  that  he  is  something."!  He  bases  his  demon- 
stration that  God,  as  a  spiritual  substance,  exists,  upon  this.  Since 
man  is  something  that  exists,  and  since  something  can  not  be  pro- 
duced by  nothing,  then  there  must  be  a  real  being  as  a  producer 
of  finite  beings.  It  is  likewise  evident,  reasons  Locke,  that  this 
being  has  existed  from  all  eternity,  that  he  is  the  source  and  origin 
of  all  power  and  therefore  most  powerful,  that  as  the  producer  of 
knowledge  he  is  most  intelligent,  and  so  on  for  the  other  attri- 
butes of  God.  Locke  regards  God  as  a  spiritual  substance,  for  he 
says  just  that.§  In  the  same  connection  he  speaks  of  men  as  finite 
substances.  So  there  seems  to  be  no  doubt  that  Locke  means  for 
the  "cogito  ergo  sum"  to  apply  to  the  soul  substance.  Windelband 
says  Locke's  treatment  of  the  cogito  ergo  sum  "refers  only  to  our 
states  and  activities,  not  to  our  essence;  it  shows  us,  indeed,  im- 
mediately and  without  doubt,  that  we  are,  but  not  wJmt  we  are."J 
This,  it  appears,  is  not  the  most  plausible  interpretation.  Locke 
does  not  mean  that  we  have  an  idea  of  the  soul  in  the  sense  of  an 
object  like  a  tree  or  a  stone,  but  that  we  get  an  idea  of  what  it  is 
in  the  sense  of  a  meaning.  The  soul  substance  is  that  which 
thinks,  perceives,  believes,  etc.  The  soul  has  these  powers  and 
attributes.  Clearly,  he  is  not  referring  merely  to  the  states  or 
ideas  themselves.  Locke  may  not  draw  upon  the  cog  ito  ergo  sum 
*rv.  ix.  3.  tiv.  x.  2. 

§11.    xxvii.    2.  $(Hist.   of  Phil.   Tuffs  trans,   p.   469.) 


31  A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


to  prove  what  the  soul's  powers  and  attributes  are,  but  he  cer- 
tainly  means  that  that  which  possesses  these  powers  and  attri- 
butes which  are  present  in  my  experience  and  which  demand  a 
substratum,  is  that  which  I  intuitively  know  as  myself.  He  iden- 
tifies the  inferred  substratum  with  the  intuitively  known  subject. 
His  argument  for  God  is  that  since  finite  cognitive  substances 
with  finite  powers  and  attributes  are  intuitively  known  to  exist, 
therefore  there  must  be  an  infinite  substance  with  infinite  powers 
and  attributes  as  the  producer  and  sustainer  of  finite  substances. 
We  demonstratively  know  God  to  be  an  infinite  substance  as  we 
intuitively  know  ourselves  to  be  finite  substances.  Locke  has, 
therefore,  two  distinct  doctrines  of  the  soul,  one  empirical,  one 
rationalistic. 

18.  BODIES..  Whatever  Locke  may  say  about  the  idea  of  mate- 
rial or  incognitive  substance,  he  never  doubts  its  existence.  Al- 
though he  says  the  idea  of  it  is  confused  yet  he  also  says  it  is  clear 
and  distinct. 

Incognitive  substance  stands  to  ideas  from  sensation  in  the 
same  relation  of  a  support  or  substratum  as  cognitive  substance 
stands  to  ideas  from  reflection.  But  there  is  this  difference: 
whereas  we  haVe  no  intuitive  knowledge  of  cognitive  substance, 
in  the  case  of  the  soul  substance  we  do  have.  Knowledge  of  our 
own  existence  has  a  higher,  degree  of  certainty  than  the  existence 
of  incognitive  substance.  [But  whether  Locke's  various  utterances 
are  consistent  or  not,  incognitive  substance,  according  to  his  rea- 
soning, is  certainly  not  unknowable.  We  not  only  know  that  it 
exists  but  we  know  many  of  its  qualities.  This  will  be  evident  when 
we  discuss  primary  and  secondary  qualities  of  bodies.  But  what 
does  Locke  mean  by  bodies?  Presumably,  in  distinguishing  be- 
tween primary  and  secondary  qualities  of  bodies,  and  in  affirming 
that  colors,  sounds,  and  smells  are  not  qualities  of  bodies  in  them- 
selves, but  that  certain  others  are,  Locke  is  explaining  the  human 
mind  to  anjntelligent  common-sense  man,  who  has  not  considered 
this  before.!  We,  as  his  readers,  evidently  hold  to  the  practical 
common-sense  view  that  bodies  are  things  variously  shaped  and 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  35 


colored,  which  exist  outside  ourselves,  and  are  really  so  colored 
and  shaped  regardless  of  any  of  our  own  determinations.  \  Bodies 
in  this  sense  are  not  correlated  groups  of  ideas,  but  are  real  ex- 
ternal and  independent  entities.  Now,  when  Locke  states  that  the 
objects  the  mind  immediately  perceives,  trees,  stones,  houses,  are 
its  ideas,  he  forever  annihilates  the  common-sense  view.  Bodies 
then  become,  for  the  neophyte,  groups  of  ideas.  In  the  next  place, 
Locke  shows,  by  a  certain  logical  principle — a  repugnancy  of  the 
mind  to  rest  with  ideas  alone — that  we  must  assume  an  unper- 
ceived  cause  for  these  ideas.  This  cause  is  the  thing  in  itself,  the 
real  body.  What  we  at  first  naively  took  to  be  qualities  of  bodies, 
are  now  seen  to  be  simple  ideas  in  complex  ideas.  When  I  say 
the  rose  is  red  and  of  a  certain  shape  and  size,  all  I  am  warranted 
in  meaning  is  that  a  certain  complex  idea,  rose,  has  in  it  the  simple 
ideas,  redness,  form,  and  extension.  The  term  qualities  is  not 
applicable  to  common-sense  bodies,  but  only  to  things  in  them- 
selves, to  critical  bodies.  Critical  bodies  have  qualities,  but  they 
are  much  fewer  in  number  than  the  simple  ideas  in  common-sense 
bodies.  There  are  no  qualities  in  critical  bodies  like  the  simple 
ideas  of  redness,  sweetness,  sourness,  loudness,  but  they  do  have 
qualities,  such  as  extension,  figure,  and  motion,  which  are  like  the 
simple  ideas  of  extension,  figure,  and  motion.  We  might  be  said 
now  to  have  completed  our  novitiate.  Never  again  can  Locke  pre- 
sume on  our  philosophic  innocenceri 

We  have  now  defined  denotatively  the  substantive  elements  of 
Locke's  theory  of  knowledge  and  find  that  the  terms  that  stand  for 
them  are  ambiguous  and  inconsistent.  Ideas  may  be  modifications 
of  the  mind,  content,  or  meaning.  Substance  may  be  a  trick  of 
language  or  a  real  existence.  Mind  may  be  merely  the  unity  of 
organization  or  a  cognitive  soul  substance.  Bodies  may  be  groups 
of  ideas  or  real  material  substances.  Thus  at  the  very  beginning 
we  find  Locke  involved  in  a  knot  of  equivocation.  Next  is  the 
question :  How  does  he  set  these  elements  to  work  ? 


36  A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


19.  ATOMIC  STRUCTURES.-4As  we  have  seen,  Locke  divides  sub- 
stances, when  he  considers  them  as  real,  into  cognitive  and  incog- 
nitive,  rather  than  into  spiritual  and  material,  although  he  be- 
lieves the  latter  is  the  correct  division.  The  one  is  the  logically 
necessary  and  intuitively  known  support,  cause,  or  substratum  of 
ideas  from  reflection;  the  other  holds  the  same  relation,  aside 
from  intuition,  to  ideas  from  sensation.  The  cognitive  substance 
of  finite  beings  is  not  diffused  but  exists  as  simple  unitary  soul- 
corpuscles — minds  or  spirits.  God  fills  all  space  and  is  thus  not 
even  figuratively  atomic.  The  world  of  finite  intelligences  is  an 
atomic  world,  a  world  of  cognitive  corpuscles  or  atoms,  simple  and 
indivisible.  Incognitive  substance  seems  to  be  more  diffused  than 
cognitive  substance,  but  even  it,  in  the  last  analysis,  probably  ex- 
ists in  the  atomic  or  granular  form.  Locke  appears  to  regard  the 
external  physical  world  as  a  mixed,  though  perhaps  not  dis- 
ordered, mass  of  atoms  in  motion.  Physical  phenomena  are  due 
in  one  way  or  another  to  the  impact  of  these  flying  particles. 
Chemical  and  electrical  changes  seem  to  be  entirely  ignored  by 
Locke.  Locke's  material  world  is  the  world  of  Newtonian  physics. 
He  accepts  the  omission  theory  of  light.  "And  since  the  exten- 
sion, figure,  number,  and  motion  of  bodies,  of  an  observable  big- 
ness, may  be  perceived  at  a  distance  by  the  sight,  it  is  evident 
some  singly  imperceptible  bodies  must  come  from  them  to  the 
eyes,  and  thereby  convey  to  the  brain  some  motion,  which  produces 
these  ideas  we  have  of  them  in  us/'*  "I  think  the  perception  we 
have  of  bodies  at  a  distance  from  ours  may  be  accounted  for,  as 
far  as  we  are  capable  of  understanding  it,  by  the  motion  of  par- 
ticles of  matter  coming  from  them  and  striking  on  our  organs."f 
"In  feeling  and  tasting  there  is  immediate  contact.  Sound  is  not 
unintelligibly  explained  by  a  vibrating  motion  communicated  to 
the  medium,  and  the  effluviums  of  the  odorous  bodies  will,  without 
any  great  difficulties,  account  for  smells."J  "Besides  the  springy 
particles  of  pure  air,  the  atmosphere  is  made  up  of  several  streams 
or  minute  particles  of  several  sorts  arising  from  the  earth  and  the 

•II.   viii.    12. 

t(Exam.  of  P.  M.'s  Opin.  9.) 

tdbid.) 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  37 


waters,  and  floating  in  the  air,  which  is  a  fluid  body,  and  though 
much  finer  and  thinner,  may  be  considered  in  respect  to  its  fluidity 
to  be  like  water,  and  so  capable,  like  other  liquors,  of  having 
heterogeneous  particles  floating  in  it."*  After  considering  great 
masses  of  matter,  the  stars,  planets,  stones,  plants,  and  animals, 
he  says,  "it  may  be  now  fit  to  consider  what  these  sensible  bodies 
are  made  of,  and  that  is  of  inconceivably  small  bodies  or  atoms, 
out  of  whose  various  combinations  bigger  moleculae  are  made."-} 
"By  the  figure,  bulk,  texture,  and  motion  of  these  small  and  insen- 
sible corpuscles,"  he  concludes,  "all  the  phenomena  of  bodies  may 
be  explained."  Thus  we  see  that  Locke's  universe,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  God,  is  atomic:  material  atoms,  soul  atoms,  and  ideas. 
Perception  and  knowledge  is  possible,  for  Locke,  either  on  the 
assumption  of  interaction  between  cognitive  and  incognitive 
atoms,  or  on  the  assumption  of  some  sort  of  meditation  by  God,  as 
occasionalism  or  pre-established  harmony.  ] 

20.  OCCASIONALISM.  Although  Locke  wrote  a  paper  exposing 
the  absurdity  of  seeing  things  in  God,  yet,  .in  his  Essay  he  has 
more  than  once  expressed  himself  in  a  manner  not  inconsistent 
with  the  occasionalism  of  Malebranche.  "Impressions  made  on 
the  retina  by  rays  of  light,"  he  says,  even  in  his  examination  of 
Malebranche's  opinion,  "I  think  I  understand;  and  motions  from 
thence  continued  to  the  brain  may  be  conceived,  and  that  these 
produce  ideas  in  our  minds,  I  am  persuaded,  but  in  a  man- 
ner to  me  incomprehensible.  This  I  can  resolve  only  into  the  good 
pleasure  of  God,  whose  ways  are  past  finding  out.  And,  I  think, 
I  know-it  as  well  when  I  am  told  these  are  ideas  that  the  motion  of 
animal  spirits,  by  a  law  established  by  God,  produces  in  me,  as 
when  I  am  told  they  are  ideas  I  see  in  God.  The  ideas,  it  is  certain 
I  have,  and  God  both  ways  is  the  original  cause  of  having  them ; 
but  the  manner  how  I  came  by  them,  how  it  is  I  perceive,  I  confess 
I  understand  not ;  though  it  be  plain  motion  has  to  do  in  the  pro- 
ducing of  them :  motion  so  modified,  is  appointed  to  be  the  cause 

*  (Elements  of  Nat.   Phil.   ch.  VI.) 
t  (Ibid.  ch.  XII.) 


38  A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


of  our  having  them."f  It  would  seem  to  follow  from  this  that  our 
ideas  from  sensation  haVe  co-ordinate  substrata,  two  causes.  The 
Cartesians  emphasized  the  sole  causality  of  God.  Since  Locke 
holds  that  we  perceive  only  our  ideas  and  that  their  cause  is  an 
I-know-not-what,  it  seems  strange  that  he  should  introduce  a 
realm  of  hypothetical  material  causes,  which  as  causes  he  some- 
times admits  are  inconceivable,  instead  of  making  God  the  sole 
ground  of  our  ideas.  But  admitting  a  world  of  material  particles 
in  motion,  Locke  has  a  parallelism  on  his  hands.  Certain  motions 
among  particles  of  the  brain  occur,  and  concomitant  with  these 
motions  certain  ideas  occur  in  the  mind.  That  an  idea  should 
produce  a  motion  in  a  material  body,  or  that  the  motion  of  a  mate- 
rial body  should  produce  an  idea  in  the  mind,  seeing  they  are  so 
different,  he  says,  is  inconceivable.  "We  are  fain  to  quit  our  rea- 
son, go  beyond  our  ideas,  and  attribute  it  wholly  to  the  good 
pleasure  of  our  Maker."t  "We  can  attribute  their  connexion  to 
nothing  else  but  the  arbitrary  determination  of  that  all-wise 
agent,  who  has  made  them  to  be,  and  to  operate  as  they  do,  in  a 
way  wholly  above  our  weak  understanding  to  conceive."}  What 
this  amounts  to  is,  that  in  a  purely  hypothetical  realm  of  things 
(which  consist  of  something  I  know  not  what,  and  whose  essence 
is  unknowable,  and  whose  existence  is  only  inferred  because  of 
our  repugnancy  to  uncaused  ideas,  which  repugnancy  might  be 
and  is  equally  satisfied  by  the  assumption  of  God)  there  are 
assumed  to  be  motions,  which  are  unknowable,  but  which  pre- 
cede or  accompany  certain  of  our  ideas  (which  are  the  material 
objects  of  common  sense) ,  but  which  as  the  cause  of  these  ideas 
are  wholly  inconceivable,  so  that  in  the  end  we  must  throw  up  our 
hands  and  say  that  these  ideas  are  wholly  due  to  the  good  pleasure 
of  God.  The  difference  between  Locke  and  Malebranche  seems  to 
be  one  of  words.  But  Locke,  although  he  admits  that  a  metaphysi- 
cal realm  of  unknowable  particles  in  motion  is  useless,1  yet  since 
iso  much  of  his  system  is  bound  up  with  an  assumption  of  this 
realm,  and  since  he  bases  so  much  of  his  doctrine  upon  the  casual 

flV.   ill.    6. 
tlV.   iii.    28. 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  39 


efficacy  of  these  unknowable  motions,  he  retains  it  in  spite  of  its 
absurdity. 

21.  INTERACTIONISM.  Locke  may  haVe  harmonized  his  occa- 
sionalism, with  his  interactionism,  in  his  own  mind,  by  admitting 
that,  ultimately,  of  course,  God  is  the  sole  cause  of  whatever  we 
experience,  changes  caused  by  one  material  thing  acting  upon  an- 
other as  well  as  ideas  in  our  minds,  but  that  on  a  less  ultimate 
level  of  thought,  not  metaphysically  but  scientifically,  i.  e.,  psycho- 
logically, we  can  speak  of  motions  in  the  brain  causing  ideas  in  the 
mind.  Once  getting  over  the  difficulty,  it  would  be  easy  to  drop 
back  to  a  more  metaphysical  way  of  regarding  causes.  But,  how- 
ever he  may  have  made  peace  with  himself  about  this  matter,  he 
is  clearly  an  interactionist. 

Each  of  the  fundamental  substances  as  agents  has  certain 
powers,  which  may  be  considered  as  of  two  kinds,  active  powers 
and  passive  powers.  The  one  is  that  attribute  or  ability*  by 
virtue  of  which  an  agent  is  able  to  initiate  any  change ;  the  other 
that  by  virtue  of  which  it  is  able  to  suffer  or  transmit  any  change. 
God  is  supposed  to  be  that  being  who  has  only  active  powers, 
matter  has  only  passive  powers,  while  created  spirits  possess 
both  active  and  passive  powers.  Leaving  God  out  of  the  account, 
it  seems  clear  that  whatever  finite  beings  experience  is  due  to 
something  that  takes  place  in  the  unknown  realm  of  substrata. 
In  the  case  of  ideas  from  sensation,  simple  ideas  are  the  result  of 
the  meeting  of  the  fundamental  substances  in  their  respective 
atomic  forms.  The  material  corpuscles  must  imprintf  themselves 
upon  the  cognitive  corpuscles,  and  the  latter  must  somehow  react 
upon  the  former.  This  must  be  so  because,  in  this  hypothetical 
realm  which  we  have  posited  in  order  to  explain  the  origin  of 
ideas,  there  are  just  these  two  kinds  of  substances,  and  they  have 
just  the  powers  we  have  given  them,  and  they  are  In  the  atomic 
form.  From  this  interaction,  then  come  two  results,  viz.,  simple 
ideas  of  sense  and  new  changes  or  motions  among  material  atoms. 
In  harmony  with  these  assumptions  we  must  regard  the  cognitive 

*II.  xxi.   16. 
til.  xxix.  3. 


40  A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


corpuscle  as  something  very  similar  to  a  protoplasmic  cell.  If  it 
is  a  purely  spiritual  substance,  then,  spiritual  substance  must 
possess  plasticity  and  mobility.  This  seems  rather  materialistic, 
but  if  there  is  to  be  interaction  how  can  we  escape  these  assump- 
tions? Ideas  of  sense  are,  therefore,  modifications  or  dents  im- 
pressed upon  the  cognitive  corpuscle,  as  upon  a  piece  of  wax,J 
are  the  only  objects  of  cognition,  i.  e.,  the  mind  or  soul  perceives 
only  its  ideas.  Not  only  can  the  soul  initiate  changes  among  the 
material  atoms,  but  also,  manifestly,  among  the  dents  or  impres- 
sions on  its  plastic  surface,  and  consequently  on  or  within  itself, 
i.  e.,  it  must  change  its  form  by  presumably  amoeboid  movements. 
By  these  internal  changes  the  soul  thus  re-distributes  and  re- 
arranges the  dents  imprinted  upon  it,  in  a  way  characteristic  of 
its  powers:  reasoning,  believing,  knowing,  etc.  If  the  soul  per- 
ceives its  dents  and  likewise  the  changes  taking  place  among  them, 
it  must  perceive  that  dents  are  being  made,  hence  simple  ideas 
from  reflection.  The  soul,  then,  knows  its  own  surface,  by  means 
of  the  impressions  upon  it.  Hence,  cog  ito  ergo  sum. 

Dents  imprinted  upon  this  plastic  surface  are  simple  ideas  of 
sense;  the  folds  or  twists  of  this  surface  are  simple  ideas  of  re- 
flection; a  system  or  correlated  arrangement  of  these  dents  is  a 
complex  idea  of  sense;  while  the  complex  ideas  of  reflection  are 
the  more  involved  turmoils  of  the  surface.  It  is  clear  why  simple 
ideas  are  atomic,  for  atomic  projectiles  could  make  only  atomic 
dents.  The  fact  that  these  projectiles  come  in  swarms  does  not 
lessen  the  simplicity  and  relative  independence  of  the  simple  ideas. 

The  soul  corpuscle,  however,  is  not  naked.  It  has  an  enclosing 
ectoderm,  the  body.  This  ectoderm  is  composed  of  unknowable 
material  atoms,  and  it  partially  protects  the  soul  from  the  external 
bombardment.  At  the  same  time  it  is  the  material  arrangement 
by  means  of  which  the  soul  acts  upon  or  effects  changes  among  the 
incognitive  atoms  of  the  external  physical  world.  This  ectoderm, 
moreover,  is  not  entire,  but  has  various  soft  spots,  traditionally 

til.    xxix.    3. 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  41 


enumerated  as  five,  through  which  external  agitation  reaches  the 
soul.  Each  soft  spot  is  of  such  a  specific  nature  that  only  the 
bombardment  of  certain  kinds  of  projectiles  are  able  to  make  an 
impression  upon  the  soul  surface  itself.  The  eye,  not  the  eye  of 
anatomy  but  that  system  of  unknowable  material  particles  which 
is  the  substratum  of  the  eye  of  anatomy,  is  one  of  these  soft  spots ; 
and  it  is  impervious  to  all  projectiles  except  very  minute  light 
corpuscles  of  Newton's  emission  theory.  Likewise  with  the  other 
sense  inlets. 

22.  IDEAS  AND  QUALITIES  OF  BODIES.  It  is  essential  in  Locke's 
discussion  of  qualities  that  they  should  be  carefully  distinguished 
from  ideas.  In  regard  to  the  raw  material  of  knowledge,  i.  e., 
simple  ideas,  the  mind,  he  says,  is  wholly  passive.*  Simple  ideas 
are  nothing  but  "the  effects  of  certain  powers  in  things,  fitted  and 
ordained  by  God  to  produce  such  sensations  [ideas]  in  us."f  "It 
is  true,"  he  says,  "the  things  producing  in  us  these  simple  ideas, 
are  but  few  of  them  denominated  by  us  as  if  they  were  only  the 
causes  of  them,  but  as  if  those  ideas  were  real  beings  in  them. 
For  though  fire  be  called  painful  to  the  touch,  whereby  is  signi- 
fied the  power  of  producing  in  us  the  idea  of  pain,  yet  it  is  denom- 
inated also  heat  and  light ;  as  if  light  and  heat  were  really  some- 
thing in  the  fire  more  than  a  power  to  excite  these  ideas  in  us,  and 
therefore  are  called  qualities  in,  or  of  the  fire.  But  these  being 
nothing,  in  truth,  but  powers  to  excite  such  ideas  in  us,  I  must  in 
that  sense  be  understood  when  I  speak  of  secondary  qualities,  as 
being  in  things ;  or  of  their  ideas,  as  being  the  objects  that  excite 
them  in  us.  Such  ways  of  speaking,  though  accommodated  to  the 
vulgar  notions,  without  which  one  can  not  be  well  understood,  yet 
truly  signify  nothing  but  those  powers  which  are  in  things  to  ex- 
cite certain  sensations  or  ideas  in  us."J  These  powers  that  reside 
in  things  themselves  are  the  qualities  of  these  things  themselves. 
"Thus  a  snowball  having  power  to  produce  in  us  the  ideas  of 
white,  cold  and  round,  the  power  to  produce  these  ideas  in  us,  as 
they  are  in  the  snowball,  I  call  qualities;  and  as  they  are  sensa- 

*II.  xxx.  3. 
til.  xxxi.  2. 
til.  xxxi.  2. 


42  A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


tions  or  perceptions  in  our  understandings,  I  call  them  ideas, 
which  ideas  if  I  speak  of  sometimes  as  in  the  things  themselves,  I 
would  be  understood  to  mean  those  qualities  in  the  object  which 
produce  them  in  us."** 

We  have  now  determined  definitely  that  there  are  two  ways  of 
regarding  things  or  bodies  and  their  qualities.  'There  is  the  com- 
mon-sense thing  with  its  common-sense  qualities,  which  is  nothing 
but  a  complex  idea  with  simple  ideas.  There  is  the  critical  thing 
or  thing  itself  with  primary  or  critical  qualities.  The  critical 
qualities  are  the  powers  of  critical  things  to  produce  two  kinds  of 
common-sense  qualities  in  common-sense  things,  or  what  is  the 
same  thing,  the  primary  or  critical  qualities  of  things  themselves 
have  the  power  to  produce  two  kinds  of  ideas,  viz.,  primary  and 
secondary  ideas.  When,  therefore,  we  make  a  distinction  between 
primary  and  secondary  qualities  of  things,  we  can  mean  only  pri- 
mary and  secondary  ideas.  Critical  things  have  only  pri- 
mary or  critical  qualities.  \ 

23.  WHAT  ARE  SECONDARY  CRITICAL  QUALITIES?  ,The  primary 
qualities  of  bodies  are,  according  to  Locke,  solidity,  extension, 
existence,  duration,  figure,  motion,  or  rest,  and  number. 
These  are  the  qualities  which  material  substance  really  has. 
These  qualities  do  not  depend  upon  the  presence  of  a 
percipient  mind.  They  are  the  qualities  things  in 
themselves  have  independent  of  any  knowledge  about  them. 
Manifestly  there  are  no  secondary  critical  qualities,  for 
secondary  qualities,  he  says,  such  as  colors,  sounds,  tastes,  etc., 
are  really  not  in  the  things  themselves  but  are  the  "powers  to 
produce  various  sensations  (ideas)  in  us  by  their  primary  quali- 
ties, i.  e.,  by  the  bulk,  figure,  texture,  and  motion  of  their  insen- 
sible parts." f  But  as  we  have  just  seen  primary  qualities  of 
things  themselves  are  just  the  powers  they  have  of  producing 
ideas  in  us.  And  since  Locke  has  shown  that  there  is  no  sense 
in  speaking  of  one  power  having  another  powerj  we  are  bound  to 
conclude  that  things  themselves  do  not  have  secondary  qualities^ 

**II.  vlii.  8. 
til.  viil  10. 
III.  xxi.  16. 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  43 


Suppose  we  take  an  example  of  a  secondary  idea.  The  simple 
secondary  idea  of  blue,  according  to  the  emission  theory,  is  pro- 
duced by  a  stream  of  exceedingly  fine  corpuscles,  traveling  at  a 
terrific  speed,  and  impinging  on  the  retina,  where  they  set  up  a 
motion.  This  motion  is  carried  back  to  the  brain  along  the  optic 
nerve,  where  it  causes  the  simple  idea  to  arise.  Red  is  produced 
in  a  like  manner.  The  difference  is  that  the  red-producing  cor- 
puscles are  large  and  smooth  compared  with  the  blue-producing 
corpuscles.  The  latter  may  be  also  oblong  instead  of  spherical. 
Since  sunlight  is  composed  of  a  mixture  of  all  the  various  color- 
producing  corpuscles,  the  question  arises  why  do  some  objects  re- 
flect red-producing  corpuscles  while  others  reflect  blue-producing 
corpuscles?  The  proximate  cause  of  the  simple  secondary  idea 
in  the  complex  idea  of  blue  flower,  is  ex  hypothesi,  the  smallness 
and  oblongness  of  the  corpuscles  that  are  reflected  from  the  thing 
itself.  Just  this  particular  kind  of  corpuscles  is  reflected  to  the 
eye  on  account  of  the  texture  or  surface  of  the  flower  itself.  The 
red-producing  corpuscles  strike  upon  the  petals  just  as  the  blue- 
producing  corpuscles  do,  but  owing  to  their  size  and  sphericity, 
and  to  the  texture  of  the  petals,  they  are  not  reflected  from  its 
surface.  Thus,  the  cause  of  the  idea  blue,  is  primarily  the  par- 
ticular form,  size,  shape,  or  number,  etc.,  of  the  light  corpuscles. 
But  more  remotely,  the  cause  of  only  one  or  another  kind  of  cor- 
puscles being  reflected  to  the  eye  from  an  object  is  the  particular 
texture,  grain,  or  conformation  of  its  minute  parts.  [What  then 
are  the  secondary  critical  qualities?  They  are  the  particular  in- 
stances of  the  primary  qualities.  Red,  let  us  say,  is  the  effect  of  a 
spherical  form,  blue  of  an  oblong  form.  Form  itself  is  primary. 
No  material  substance  exists  without  form.  But  the  particular 
form  is  secondary.  Motion  is  a  primary  quality.  Heat,  as  Locke 
says,  is  an  idea  caused  by  the  motions  of  the  minute  parts  of 
water,  for  example,  on  the  sensible  parts  of  our  hands.  But 
whether  the  water  will  feel  cold  or  hot,  depends  upon  what  kind 
of  a  motion  is  conducted  to  the  brain.  The  secondary  quality  is 


44  A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


the  particular  motion,  say  of  so  many  vibrations  per  second.  We 
can  see  now  why  primary  and  secondary  ideas  are  so  closely  re- 
lated, why  we  can  never  see  pure  extension  without  some  second- 
ary idea  of  color  or  touch.  Secondary  critical  qualities,  therefore, 
do  exist  in  things  themselves  as  the  specific  or  particular  instances 
of  the  primary  qualities.  Since  bodies  can  not  have  motion,  figure, 
extension,  etc.,  without  some  particular  motion,  figure,  extension, 
primary  qualities  are  merely  generalizations  from  secondary  qual- 
ities. Secondary  qualities  are  the  particulars,  and  primary 
qualities  are  the  universals.  As  Socrates  would  say,  the  argument 
is  laughing  at  us.  We  began  by  regarding  secondary  qualities  as 
derived  from  primary,  and  now  we  end  by  stating  that  primary 
qualities  are  merely  generalizations  from  secondary.' 

Since  "all  things  that  exist  being  particulars,"*  and  since  "uni- 
versality belongs  not  to  things  themselves,  which  are  all  of  them 
particular  in  their  existence ;  even  those  words  and  ideas  which  in 
their  signification  are  general,"  and  "when  therefore  we  quit  par- 
ticulars, the  generals  that  rest  are  only  creatures,  of  our  own 
making ;  their  nature  being  nothing  but  the  capacity  they  are  put 
into  by  the  understanding,  of  signifying  or  representing  many 
particulars.  For  the  signification  they  have  is  nothing  but  a  rela- 
tion, that  by  the  mind  of  man  is  added  to  them."t  [Primary  criti- 
cal qualities  are  thus  general  ideas  used  as  signs  in  the  classifi- 
cation or  sorting  of  secondary  critical  qualities.  Secondary  criti- 
cal qualities  are  the  only  qualities  of  things  themselves  that  really 
exist.  Primary  critical  qualities  have  only  a  nominal  existence. 
Thus  there  are  no  ideas  like  critical  qualities.  The  idea  of  figure 
has  nothing  like  it  in  reality.  "Figure  is  nothing  but  the  termina- 
tion of  colour."}  Redness  is  more  primary  than  extension., 
_  24.  IF  COMMON-SENSE  BODIES  RESEMBLE  CRITICAL  BODIES. 
Secondary  common-sense  qualities  do  not  exist  in  things  them- 
selves "otherwise  than  as  anything  is  in  its  cause-"§  Colors,  sounds- 

•III.   iii.   1.  $(Elemts.    of  Nat.    Phil.    ch.   X.) 

tin.  iii.  11.  §11.  xxiii.  9. 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  45 


smells,  and  tastes,  in  so  far  as  they  exist  in  things  themselves, 
exist  as  particular  forms  of  primary  qualities.  They  exist  there, 
i.  e.,  there  is  something  in  things  themselves  that  corresponds  to 
and  is  the  cause  of  the  secondary  common-sense  qualities,  but 
what  exists  there  does  not  resemble  its  effect  in  us.  But  on  the 
other  hand,  in  the  case  of  the  primary  common-sense  qualities, 
what  exists  in  things  themselves  as  the  cause  of  primary  ideas  in 
us,  does  resemble  these  ideas.  "The  ideas  of  primary  qualities  of 
bodies,"  he  says,  "are  resemblances  of  them,  and  their  patterns  do 
really  exist  in  the  bodies  themselves ;  but  the  ideas  produced  in  us 
by  these  secondary  qualities  have  no  resemblance  to  them  at  all."* 
"The  particular  bulk,  number,  figure,  and  motion  of  the  parts  of 
fire,  or  snow,  are  really  in  them,  whether  any  one's  senses  perceive 
them  or  no,  and  therefore  they  may  be  called  real  qualities,  be- 
cause they  really  exist  in  those  bodies."f  Now,  what  is  it  for  one 
thing  to  be  like  another?  One  thing  is  like  another  in  one  partic- 
ular if  they  both  have  one  identical  quality.  If  an  orange  and  a 
ball  resemble  each  other  in  form,  they  both  have  the  quality  of 
sphericity.  If  two  things  resemble  each  other  in  all  particulars 
except  numerical  identity,  they  have  identical  qualities.  Two 
things  are  alike  in  so  far  as  they  possess  identical  qualities.  If, 
therefore,  common-sense  bodies  resemble  the  critical  bodies  which 
underlie  them,  they  are  identical  in  respect  of  these  qualities. 
Common-sense  primary  ideas  are,  consequently,  identical  with 
critical  primary  qualities.  Ideas  of  motion  are  motion,  ideas  of 
extension  are  extension.  The  common-sense  body  which  has  ideas 
of  motion,  extension,  figure,  etc.,  has  the  primary  qualities 
of  motion,  extension,  figure,  etc.  Now,  a  material  body  is  that 
which  has  these  primary  qualities.  Common-sense  bodies,  then, 
are  material  bodies.  Since  common-sense  bodies  are  complex  ideas 
in  the  mind,  there  are  material  bodies,  with  the  qualities,  of  ex- 
tension, figure,  motion,  existence,  etc.,  in  the  mind.  The  mind 
thus  has  within  itself  a  material  world  which  resembles  an  ex- 
ternal material  world  in  respect  of  these  primary  qualities.  This 

•II.   viil.    15. 
til,  viii.  17. 


46  A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


internal  material  world  differs  from  the  external  material  world 
in  that  it  possesses  an  indefinite  number  of  secondary  qualities, 
which  do  not  resemble  the  secondary  critical  qualities  which  are 
their  causes.  Since  ideas  themselves  are  not  substantial  exist- 
ences, but  the  effects  of  the  interaction  between  substantial  exist- 
ences, we  have  the  result  that  there  exists  as  a  complex  object 
before  the  mind,  a  material  world  which  has  the  qualities  of 
extension,  motion,  figure,  existence,  etc.,  but  which  does  not 
require  a  support  or  substratum  for  these  qualities.  But  if  we 
regard  ideas,  not  as  a  tertium  quid,  but  as  parts  or  modifications 
of  the  soul  substance  itself,  then  we  must  conclude  that  the  soul 
substance  possesses  all  the  qualities  of  material  substance.  Cog- 
nitive substance  would  thus  include  all  substance,  and  the  distinc- 
tion between  cognitive  and  incognitive  substance  would  be  the 
distinction  Between  the  whole  and  the  part.  But  this  Locke  for- 
bids us  to  do.  We  must  therefore  declare  that  the  common-sense 
external  world  is  a  real  material  world  without  a  substratum,  or 
else  that  common-sense  bodies  do  not  resemble  critical  bodies  in 
respect  of  their  primary  qualities. 

If  a  common-sense  body  can  be  said  to  be  like  a  critical  body 
only  in  so  far  as  it  possess  the  same  or  identical  qualities,  and  if 
the  likeness  is  greater  in  so  far  as  the  number  of  identical 
qualities  is  greater,  it  follows  that  common-sense  bodies,  whatever 
they  are  or  however  they  are  caused,  possess  these  critical  quali- 
ties in  their  own  right.  That  they  have  these  qualities  is  conse- 
quently no  ground  for  supposing  that  they  are  caused  or  that  they 
have  an  unknowable  substratum.  If  we  assert  that  they  are 
caused  or  need  a  support,  we  must  do  so  from  some  other  ground 
than  that  of  the  mere  presence  of  these  qualities.  But  this  is  the 
very  argument  that  Locke  uses  to  prove  a  substratum.  Hence  it 
appears  that  he  must  give  up  his  external  real  world  as  a  useless 
assumption,  or  else  deny  that  this  real  world  has  bodies  similar  to 
the  bodies  of  the  common-sense  world.  If  he  would  do  this,  then 
he  could  not  assert  that  the  real  external  world  has  solidity,  exist- 
ence, duration,  figure,  motion  or  rest,  or  number.  His  whole 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  47 


rationalistic  scheme  of  atoms  in  motion,  of  sense  organs  and 
animal  spirits,  would  go  to  pieces.  Since  existence  is  a  primary 
quality,  he  could  not  assert  that  his  hypothetical  external  world 
actually  existed.  It  would  be  truly  unknowable  and  incompre- 
hensible. Apparently  the  only  escape  from  this  dilemma  is  to 
abandon  the  doctrine  of  ideas  and  assert  that  the  common-sense 
external  world  is  the  external  world. 

25.  THE  GROUND  OF  DISTINCTION  BETWEEN  PRIMARY  AND 
SECONDARY  QUALITIES.  It  appears  that  Locke  divided  qualities 
of  bodies  into  primary  and  secondary  because  he  found  that 
solidity,  extension,  figure,  duration,  motion  or  rest,  number,  and 
existence,  are  more  important  than  the  various  sounds,  colors, 
tastes,  smells,  temperatures,  and  feelings  of  hardness,  softness, 
etc.  But  the  importance  of  the  former  is  that  to  a  special  natural 
science,  viz.,  physics.  The  so-called  primary  qualities  are  impor- 
tant for  physics  on  account  of  its  special  problems.  It  finds  it 
convenient  for  its  special  purposes  to  make  this  distinction.  When 
we  come  to  examine  the  human  understanding,  surely  we  are  not 
studying  a  branch  of  physics.  It  may  be  that  from  this  standpoint 
the  so-called  secondary  qualities  are  the  most  important.  At  least 
it  is  not  evident  that  the  special  problems  of  physics  should  domin- 
ate our  investigation. 

In  trying  to  justify  the  assumption  of  the  first  importance  of 
the  qualities  of  solidity,  figure,  etc.,  Locke  offers  the  following 
proof :  "Qualities  thus  considered  in  bodies  are,  first,  such  as  are 
utterly  inseparable  from  the  body,  in  what  estate  soever  it  be; 
such  as  in  all  the  alterations  and  changes  it  suffers,  all  the  force 
can  be  used  upon  it,  it  constantly  keeps;  and  such  as  sense  con- 
stantly finds  in  every  particle  of  matter  which  has  bulk  enough  to 
be  perceived,  and  the  mind  finds  inseparable  from  every  particle 
of  matter,  though  less  than  to  make  itself  singly  perceived  by  our 
senses:  v.  g.,  take  a  grain  of  wheat,  divide  it  into  two  parts,  each 
part  still  has  solidity,  extension,  figure,  and  mobility;  divide  it 
again  and  it  retains  still  the  same  qualities ;  and  so  divide  it  on  till 


48  A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


the  parts  become  insensible,  they  must  retain  still  each  of  them 
all  those  qualities :  for  division  (which  is  all  that  a  mill,  or  pestle, 
or  any  other  body  does  upon  another,  in  reducing  it  to  insensible 
parts)  can  never  take  away  either  solidity,  figure,  or  mobility 
from  any  body,  but  only  makes  two  or  more  distinct  separate 
masses  of  matter  of  that  which  was  but  one  before;  all  which 
distinct  masses,  reckoned  as  so  many  distinct  bodies,  after  divi- 
sion, make  a  certain  number.  These  I  call  original  or  primary 
qualities  of  body,  which  I  think  we  may  observe  to  produce  simple 
ideas  in  us,  viz.,  solidity,  extension,  figure,  motion  or  rest,  and 
number."*  Secondary  qualities,  he  says,  "are  nothing  in  the  ob- 
jects themselves,  but  powers  to  produce  various  sensations  [ideas] 
in  us  by  their  primary  qualities."  So  far  this  is  confusing  and  in- 
conclusive. A  grain  of  wheat  is  a  common-sense  body  with  color 
as  well  as  extension.  The  ideas  of  color,  taste,  and  smell  are  in 
the  complex  idea,  grain  of  wheat,  as  well  as,  and  of  as  much  im- 
portance as,  the  ideas  of  extension,  mobility,  or  figure.  When  we 
reduce  the  grain  of  wheat  to  particles  so  fine  as  to  be  impercep- 
tible, the  ideas  of  extension,  mobility,  and  figure,  cease  to  exist 
along  with  the  ideas  of  color,  taste,  and  smell.  Since  he  himself 
says  that  figure  is  the  limit  of  color,  it  is  clear  that  when  we  get 
no  idea  of  color  we  get  no  idea  of  figure.  He  can  not,  therefore, 
mean  common-sense  body,  the  complex  idea,  grain  of  wheat.  But 
he  can  not  be  thinking  of  the  critical  body  of  his  theory,  for  that, 
ex  hypothesi,  has  only  the  so-called  primary  qualities.  Here,  his 
task  is  to  show  why  some  qualities  are  more  important  than 
others,  and  his  theory  must  gain  its  plausibility  from  the  results 
of  this  investigation  and  not  contrariwise. 

In  another  passage,  he  says,  "First  the  ideas  of  the  primary 
qualities  of  things,  which  are  discovered  by  our  senses,  and  are  in 
them  even  when  we  perceive  them  not ;  such  are  the  bulk,  figure, 
number,  situation,  and  motion  of  the  parts  of  bodies,  which  are 
really  in  them,  whether  we  take  notice  of  them  or  not.  Secondly, 
the  sensible  secondary  qualities,  which  depending  on  these,  are 
nothing  but  the  powers  those  substances  have  to  produce  several 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  49 


ideas  in  us  by  our  senses ;  which  ideas  are  not  in  the  things  them- 
selves, otherwise  than  as  anything  is  in  its  cause."f  What  con- 
stitutes importance  for  physics,  apparently,  is  permanence.  If  a 
quality  is  an  abiding  quality  it  is  important  and  primary.  If  its 
presence  or  condition  depends  upon  the  presence  or  condition  of  a 
percipient  it  is  not  important  and  primary  for  physics.  If  Locke 
is  talking  about  the  common-sense  body,  then,  what  he  says 
amounts  to  this :  among  the  various  qualities  of  the  common-sense 
body,  there  are  some  which  persist  whether  we  observe  them  or 
not ;  the  other  qualities,  which  are  the  effects  of  these  on  us,  cease 
to  exist  when  we  no  longer  observe  them.  But  this  implies  that 
an  idea  persists  when  it  is  not  an  object  before  the  mind,  and  that 
Locke  denies.  An  alternative  is  that  primary  ideas  and  primary 
qualities  are  identical,  and  that  the  object  under  discussion  is 
made  partly  of  ideas  and  partly  of  real  abiding  qualities.  But  in 
that  case,  the  mind  would  perceive  something  other  than  its  ideas, 
which  is  also  denied  by  Locke.  Or,  if  primary  qualities  are  ideas, 
then  we  have  some  ideas  as  the  cause  and  support  of  others,  and 
the  occasion  for  an  external  world  disappears.  In  fact,  what  he 
means  by  body  here,  is  something  that  can  be  regarded  either  in 
a  common-sense  way  or  in  a  critical  way,  or  half  one  and  half  the 
other.  That  is,  it  means  anything  he  wants  it  to  mean  at  any 
point  in  the  argument.  The  only  definite  assertion  is  that  some 
qualities  depend  upon  a  perceiving  mind  and  that  some  others  do 
not. 

The  proof  of  this  assertion  appears  to  be  this :  The  color,  heat, 
or  sound  of  a  body  changes  with  the  surrounding  conditions  and 
its  relation  to  the  sense  organs.  When  the  light  ceases  to  strike 
upon  a  piece  of  porphyry,  for  example,  its  colors  vanish.  Now, 
the  bulk  and  figure  of  this  piece  remain  the  same,  whether  it  is  in 
the  light  or  not,  and  whether  we  are  looking  at  it  or  not.  "Can 
any  one  think  any  real  alterations  are  made  in  the  porphyry  by  the 
presence  or  absence  of  light :  and  that  those  ideas  of  whiteness  and 
redness  are  really  in  porphyry  in  the  light,  when  it  is  plain  it  has 

til.  xxiii.  9. 


50  A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


no  colour  in  the  dark?  It  has,  indeed,  such  a  configuration  of 
particles,  both  night  and  day,  as  are  apt  by  the  rays  of  light  re- 
bounding from  some  parts  of  that  hard  stone,  to  produce  in  us 
the  idea  of  redness,  and  from  others  the  idea  of  whiteness ;  but 
whiteness  or  redness  are  not  in  it  at  any  time,  but  such  a  texture, 
that  hath  the  power  to  produce  such  a  sensation  in  us."* 

There  are  really  two  arguments  here.  One,  that  secondary 
qualities  depend  upon  the  presence  and  functioning  of  the  sense 
organs,  the  other  that  secondary  qualities  are  more  unstable  and 
fluent  than  the  primary.  Suppose  we  take  the  latter  first.  It  is 
the  argument  from  mechanical  physics  and  does  not  necessarily 
imply  that  some  secondary  qualities  are  not  always  present  with 
the  primary.  A  quality  that  is  important  for  physics  is  one  that 
lends  itself  to  mathematical  formulation.  The  spatial  qualities 
of  bodies  can  be  so  formulated.  By  them  events  can  be  given  a 
numerical  statement  and  their  occurrence  predicted.  The  laws  or 
ways  in  which  they  occur  can  be  stated  mathematically.  The 
reason  why  secondary  qualities  are  unimportant  for  physics,  is  not 
that  a  perceiving  mind  is  necessary  for  their  existence,  but  be- 
cause they  are  qualities  such  as  can  not  be  dealt  with  mathemati- 
cally. This,  it  will  be  admitted,  is  legitimate,  if  mathematical 
statement  is  our  purpose.  But  Locke  implies  that  this  statement 
is  equivalent  to  the  statement  that  primary  or  spatial  qualities 
are  unconditioned.  This  is  an  unwarranted  implication  and  is  not 
demanded  by  mathematical  physics.  As  Locke  himself  is  forced 
to  admit,  the  ideas  of  primary  qualities  are  conditioned  as  much 
by  the  ideas  of  secondary  qualities,  as  the  secondary  by  the  pri- 
mary. What  physics  is  dealing  with,  is  not  the  critical  objects, 
but  the  common-sense  objects.  What  it  says  is  that  the  spatial 
ideas  are  more  important  for  its  purposes  than  the  so-called  sec- 
ondary ideas.  But  all  the  time  it  is  dealing  with  the  world  we 
know,  the  world  of  ideas,  in  Locke's  sense.  In  the  case  of  a  sen- 
sible object,  it  is  the  size,  shape,  or  conformation  of  its  parts  that 
is  important.  Its  color,  odor,  etc.,  can  be  neglected.  Physics  is 

»II.  viii.  19. 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  51 


interested  in  the  length  and  the  diameter  of  a  vibrating  string, 
not  in  its  color  or  taste.  But  this  is  not  saying  that  it  has  no  color 
or  taste,  or  that  it  is  possible  to  have  one  without  color  or  taste. 
The  thing  we  are  talking  about  is  an  experiencible  object,  one 
that  we  can  see  and  touch.  In  the  case  of  the  insensible  parts,  the 
molecules  or  atoms,  if  they  are  said  to  exist  at  all,  they  exist  such 
that,  if  our  touch  or  sight  were  sensitive  or  acute  enough,  we  could 
actually  feel  or  see  them.  It  is  a  mere  accident  that  we  do  not. 
In  lieu  of  seeing  or  touching  them,  we  imagine  ourselves  seeing  or 
touching  them.  That  is,  they  are  of  the  same  nature  as  the  larger 
objects.  It  is  like  looking  at  a  page  of  fine  print  across  the  room. 
What  I  see  is  a  rectangular  gray  patch  on  the  white  paper.  I  say 
that  this  gray  patch  is  made  up  of  three  or  four  hundred  black 
letters  of  definite  shapes,  i.  e.,  I  mean  that  if  I  were  close  enough 
to  the  page  that  is  what  I  should  see.  These  unseen  letters  are  of 
the  nature  of  Locke's  ideas.  Atoms  and  molecules  are  not  the 
material  substratum,  but  are  the  fine  parts  of  our  experienced 
world.  They  are  in  the  same  class  with  distant  objects  or  with 
inaccessible  objects,  as  the  center  of  the  earth.  They  are  related 
to  and  coherent  with  what  we  do  experience.  Locke  and  the  physi- 
cists can  not  say  that  primary  ideas  are  unconditioned  by  second- 
ary ideas.  As  has  been  admitted  there  are  no  pure  primary  ideas. 
Extension  is  the  extension  of  something  seen  or  touched.  What 
Locke  appears  to  say  is  that  primary  qualities,  the  qualities  of  the 
real  unknowable  substrata  which  he  thinks  we  are  forced  to  as- 
sume, are  unconditioned  by  secondary  ideas.  Or,  although  pri- 
mary qualities  are  like  primary  ideas,  there  are  no  secondary 
qualities  like  secondary  ideas.  The  reason  is  that,  since  primary 
ideas  are  found  to  be  important  for  mechanical  physics  while 
secondary  ideas  can  be  ignored,  therefore  real  qualities  of  things 
themselves  are  like  the  primary  ideas.  This  would  be  valid  only  in 
case  primary  ideas  are  unconditioned  by  secondary  ideas.  But 
since  primary  ideas  are  conditioned  by  secondary  ideas,  we  are  not 


52  A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


warranted  in  concluding  that  there  are  no  secondary  qualities  like 
secondary  ideas  which  condition  the  primary  qualities. 

If  those  qualities  which  are  important  are  the  only  ones  belong- 
ing to  real  things,  it  remains  to  be  shown  why  the  purposes  of 
physics  are  to  be  taken  into  consideration  rather  than  the  pur- 
poses of  the  musician  or  colorist,  for  example.  To  explain  a 
musical  composition  or  a  painting  in  terms  of  vibrations  of  certain 
amplitudes  and  frequencies  would  hardly  be  allowed  by  the  musi- 
cian or  painter.  Just  as  the  physicist  would  have  to  admit  that  his 
primary  qualities  are  not  unconditioned  by  the  others,  so  the 
musician  would  have  to  admit  that  certain  spatial  qualities  are 
present  as  conditions  of  musical  expression,  but  with  the  same 
right  by  which  the  physicist  ignores  certain  qualities  as  unim- 
portant the  musician  can  ignore  these  spatial  qualities.  The 
important  qualities  for  him  are  other  than  these.  When  we  con- 
sider all  the  various  purposes  and  the  peculiar  qualities  that  are 
important  for  them,  the  innumerable  practical  and  social  pur- 
poses, the  aesthetic,  moral,  and  religious  purposes,  the  singling 
out  just  those  qualities  which  are  important  for  mechanical 
physics  as  the  only  qualities  belonging  to  material  reality,  seems 
to  need  more  cogent  argument  than  Locke  has  offered.  It  must 
be  noted,  however,  that  Locke  is  dealing  only  with  the  primary 
qualities  of  material  substance. 

In  his  second  argument  by  which  he  attempts  to  show  that  sec- 
ondary qualities  are  not  qualities  of  things  themselves  because 
they  are  nothing  but  effects  in  us  of  the  primary  qualities,  Locke 
feels  that  he  has  proved  his  thesis  conclusively.  Redness  and 
whiteness  are  not  in  the  porphyry,  because  these  qualities  change 
with  the  alterations  of  light.  The  piece  of  porphyry  is  unchanged 
whether  it  is  in  the  light  or  not.  It  has  its  primary  spatial 
qualities  just  the  same.  This  reference  to  a  change  of  illumina- 
tion, however,  is  not  necessary  to  his  argument.  What  he  means 
is  that  a  well-lighted  piece  of  porphyry  has  neither  redness  nor 
whiteness  unless  there  is  a  man  there,  with  his  eyes  in  normal 
condition,  looking  at  it.  It  is  the  redness  and  whiteness  of  the 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  63 


porphyry  that  I  am  now  observing  under  favorable  conditions, 
and  which  I  believe,  as  a  common-sense  observer,  to  be  the  quali- 
ties of  the  porphyry,  that  are  not  in  the  porphyry  at  all  but  are  in 
me.    Locke  offers  as  a  test  case,  the  fact  that  when  one  hand  is 
cold  and  the  other  hot,  tepid  water  will  feel  hot  to  the  cold  hand 
and  cold  to  the  hot  hand.     "Ideas  being  thus  distinguished  and 
understood,  we  may  be  able  to  give  an  account  how  the  same 
water,  at  the  same  time,  may  produce  the  ideas  of  cold  by  one  hand 
and  heat  by  the  other;  whereas  it  is  impossible  that  the  same 
water,  if  those  ideas  are  really  in  it  [are  we  to  imply  that  primary 
ideas  are  in  it?],  should  at  the  same  time  be  both  hot  and  cold :  for 
if  we  imagine  warmth,  as  it  is  in  our  hands,  to  be  nothing  but  a 
certain  sort  and  degree  of  motion  in  the  minute  particles  of  our 
nerves  or  animal  spirits,  we  may  understand  how  it  is  possible  that 
the  same  water  may,  at  the  same  time  produce  the  sensations  of 
heat  in  one  hand,  and  cold  in  the  other;  which  yet  figure  never 
does,  that  never  producing  the  idea  of  a  square  by  one  hand, 
which  has  produced  the  idea  of  globe  by  the  other.'**     There  is 
another  experiment  in  perception  known  to  Aristotle  and  common 
among  school  children  of  our  day  which  from  its  simplicity  might 
well  have  been  known  to  Locke.    Take  the  two  hands.    If  we  hold 
a  small  marble  or  a  pea  between  the  thumb  and  finger  of  one  hand 
we  get  the  idea  of  a  primary  quality,  number.     We  feel  one 
marble.    If  we  touch  the  crossed  fingers  of  the  other  hand  with 
the  same  marble  we  get  the  idea  of  two  marbles  from  that  hand. 
At  one  and  the  same  time,  the  same  object  gives  us  the  primary 
idea  of  one-ness  from  one  hand  and  of  two-ness  from  the  other. 
In  general,  Locke's  test  for  the  permanence  of  spatial  qualities 
is  that  they  are  not  subject  to  illusions.    His  assumption  is  that 
those  qualities  which  change  with  the  varying  conditions  of  obser- 
vation are  secondary,  those  that  do  not  are  primary.     A  very 
elementary  knowledge  of  sense  illusion,  however,  shows  that  the 
so-called  primary  qualities  are  quite  as  subject  to  illusion  as  the 
secondary.    Without  going  into  a  modern  discussion  of  illusion 
•n.  via.  21. 


54  A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


this  is  very  evident.  We  can  cite  from  Locke  himself  the  illusory 
character  of  certain  ideas  of  primary  qualities.  "When  we  set 
before  our  eyes  a  round  globe,  of  any  uniform  color,  v.  g.,  gold, 
alabaster,  or  jet,  it  is  certain  that  the  idea  thereby  imprinted  in 
our  mind  is  of  a  flat  circle  variously  shadowed,  with  several  de- 
grees of  light  and  brightness  coming  to  our  eyes."f  We  judge  this 
flat  circle  to  be  a  spherical  body  evidently  by  correlating  it  with 
our  ideas  from  touch.  The  illusion  of  a  painting,  he  implies,  is 
due  to  this  customary  judgment.  That  sight  does  not  give  us  the 
third  dimension  he  admits  in  his  answer  to  Molineaux's  problem 
of  the  blind  man  who  regains  his  sight.  He  is  of  the  opinion,  he 
says,  "that  the  blind  man,  at  first  sight,  would  not  be  able  with 
certainty  to  say,  which  was  the  globe,  which  the  cube,  whilst  he 
only  saw  them."J  In  criticising  Malebranche's  assertion  about 
our  perception  of  a  cube  that  "we  see  all  its  sides  equal,"  he  says, 
"This,  I  think,  is  a  mistake;  and  I  have  in  another  place  shown 
how  the  idea  we  have  of  a  regular  solid,  is  not  the  true  idea  of  that 
solid,  but  such  an  one  by  custom  (as  the  name  of  it  goes),  seems 
to  excite  our  judgment  to  form  such  an  one."f  There  is  an  illusion 
of  motion,  which  is  not  given  by  Locke,  but  which  requires  no 
erudition  or  elaborate  apparatus.  The  perception  of  motion  is 
usually  attributed  to  a  movement  of  the  image  on  the  retina.  This 
occurs  and  we  have  the  perception  of  movement,  whether  the  eye 
is  stationary  and  the  object  moving,  or  whether  the  object  is  sta- 
tionary and  the  eye  quickly  moving.  But  when  one  sights  down 
a  gun  barrel  at  a  distant  object  and  then  without  moving  the  eye 
focusses  the  eye  on  the  rear  sight,  the  object  is  seen  to  move. 
Evidently  this  perception  of  movement  is  due  to  a  judgment,  based 
probably  on  the  movement  of  the  closed  eye.  Ideas 
of  primary  qualities  from  sight,  can  not  therefore  be  said  to 
resemble  the  primary  qualities  themselves.  The  eye  is  subject 
to  illusions  of  size,  form,  number,  motion,  and  solidity.  Since  the 
senses  of  hearing  and  taste  and  smell  are  likewise  subject  to  illu- 
sion, and  since  Locke  does  not  regard  them  as  principal  sources 
tn.  ix.  s. 

tdbid.) 

tCExam.  of  P.  M.'s  Opin.  12.) 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  65 


of  our  primary  ideas,*  we  have  only  the  sense  of  touch  whereby 
we  can  get  true  ideas  of  primary  qualities. 

If  we  give  up  all  the  senses  but  touch  by  what  criterion  are 
we  to  judge  it?  If  the  eye  deludes  us  in  regard  to  the  color  and 
shape  of  the  piece  of  porphyry  before  us,  how  do  we  know  that 
touch  is  not  doing  the  same  thing?  When  an  old  soldier  with  his 
leg  amputated  feels  his  lost  foot  extended  in  space,  how  is  he  going 
to  deny  the  reliability  of  his  idea?  What  about  the  primary  idea 
of  existence?  In  the  case  of  vivid  dreams  and  hallucinations  the 
case  for  touch  seems  to  fall  to  pieces.  Reality,  therefore,  can  not 
be  sought  in  primary  spatial  qualities. 

v26.  THE  HOPELESS  CONFUSION  OF  LOCKE'S  THOUGHT.  The 
seeming  plausibility  of  Locke's  argument  for  primary  qualities 
is  due  to  his  confusion  of  the  common-sense  body  with  his  hypo- 
thetical or  "real"  body,  and  of  primary  ideas  with  primary  quali- 
ties. He  says,  "I  hope  I  shall  be  pardoned  this  little  excursion 
into  natural  philosophy,  it  being  necessary  in  our  present  inquiry 
to  distinguish  the  primary  and  real  qualities  of  bodies,  which  are 
always  in  them  (viz.,  solidity,  figure,  number,  and  motion  or  rest ; 
and  are  sometimes  perceived  by  us,  viz.,  when  the  bodies  they  are 
in  are  big  enough  singly  to  be  discerned)  from  the  secondary  and 
imputed  qualities,  which  are  but  the  powers  of  several  combina- 
tions of  those  primary  ones,  when  they  operate,  without  being 
distinctly  discerned;  whereby  we  may  also  come  to  know  what 
ideas  are,  and  what  they  are  not,  resemblances  of  something  really 
existing  in  the  bodies  we  denominate  from  them."t  This  sen- 
tence is  eloquent  of  the  confusion  into  which  he  has  fallen.  He 
is  talking  about  "real"  bodies,  the  things  themselves,  not  complex 
ideas.  He  says  these  real  bodies  have  in  them  real  primary  qual- 
ities. We  are  not  concerned  at  present  in  denying  this  statement. 
Let  us  suppose  there  are  such  real  bodies,  and  that  their  real 
qualities  are  solidity,  extension,  figure,  etc.  Now  he  goes  on  to 
say  that  under  ordinary  conditions,  i.  e.,  when  the  bodies  are  not 
of  microscopic  dimensions  or  less,  these  primary  qualities  are 

•II.   xllL   2. 
fll.  viil.  22. 


56  A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


perceived  by  us.  He  has  taught  us  before  that  primary  qualities 
are  not  and  from  their  nature  can  not  be  perceived  by  us.  What- 
jsoever  the  mind  perceives  in  itself,  or  is  the  immediate  object  of 
perception,  thought,  or  understanding,  that  I  call  idea;  and  the 
power  to  produce  any  idea  in  our  mind  I  call  quality  of  the  subject 
wherein  that  power  is.  Thus  a  snowball  having  the  power  to 
produce  in  us  ideas  of  white,  cold,  and  round,  the  powers  to  pro- 
duce those  ideas  in  us,  as  they  are  in  the  snowball,  I  call  qualities ; 
and  as  they  are  sensations  or  perceptions  in  our  understandings, 
I  call  them  ideas/'*  Round,  which  is  a  primary  idea  in  the  com- 
plex idea,  snowball,  is  produced  in  us  by  a  power  in  the  real  snow- 
ball. This  power  is  the  real  primary  quality  residing  in  the  thing 
itself.  The  most  that  can  be  said  for  the  primary  idea  is  that  it  is 
like  the  primary  quality.  Now  he  says  that  these  primary  qual- 
ities are  perceived  by  us.  In  another  place,  he  says,  in  most  sen- 
sible things  "we  can  not  avoid  observing  their  sensible  qualities, 
nay,  their  very  substances,  to  be  in  a  continual  flux/'J  But  since 
whatever  is  an  object  when  a  man  thinks  is  an  idea,  primary  qual- 
ities are,  sometimes  at  least,  ideas.  Thus  primary  qualities  are 
and  can  not  be  ideas.  We  recall  that  he  says,  "which  ideas,  if  I 
speak  of  sometimes  as  the  things  themselves,  I  would  be  under- 
stood to  mean  those  qualities  in  the  objects  which  produce  them 
in  us,"  and  in  another  place  we  find  him  saying  "powers"  and 
"substance"  when  he  means  simple  ideas  and  complex  ideas,  as 
"therefore  it  is  that  I  have  reckoned  these  powers  among  simple 
ideas,  which  make  the  complex  ones  of  the  sorts  of  substances; 
though  these  powers,  considered  in  themselves,  are  truly  complex 
ideas.  And  in  their  looser  sense  I  crave  leave  to  be  understood, 
when  I  name  any  of  these  potentialities  among  the  simple  ideas 
which  we  collect  in  our  minds,  when  we  think  of  particular  sub- 
stances.'^ Let  us  take  him  at  his  word.  In  the  sentence  at  the 
beginning  of  this  paragraph,  he  speaks  of  real  qualities  being  per- 
ceived by  us.  Evidently,  therefore,  according  to  the  indulgence 
he  allows  himself,  whereby  words  are  all  things  to  all  men,  we  can 

*II.   viii.    8. 
JII.   xxi.   4. 
$11.  xxiii.  7. 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  67 


interpret  the  sentence  in  question  as  meaning  that  there  are  pri- 
mary ideas  in  common-sense  bodies  or  complex  ideas,  which  are 
perceived  by  us.  The  "sometimes"  now  becomes  anomalous.  Are 
there  primary  ideas  which  are  not  objects  perceived  ?  What  other 
meaning  can  be  given  to  the  word?  But  an  idea  is  that  which  is 
an  immediate  object.  We  are  forced  to  conclude  that  an  idea  is 
and  may  not  be  an  immediate  object  before  the  mind.  But  to  con- 
tinue the  substitution  of  "ideas"  for  "qualities"  in  the  sentence  in 
question,  we  see  that  secondary  and  imputed  ideas  are  but  the 
powers  of  several  combinations  of  those  primary  ones.  Primary 
ideas  are,  consequently,  powers  of  complex  ideas  to  produce  in  us 
secondary  ideas.  Complex  ideas,  thus,  are  made  up  only  of  pri- 
mary ideas ;  secondary  ideas  are  the  product  of  complex  ideas. 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  we  have  learned  that  complex  ideas  are 
just  those  constellations  of  ideas  of  whatever  sort  which  come 
together,  concomitantly  or  serially.  Secondary  ideas  are,  part  of 
that  which  is  their  cause.  Consequently,  they  are  and  are  not 
primary.  Again,  what  can  Locke  mean  by  speaking  of  primary 
qualities  operating  "without  being  distinctly  discerned?"  If  he 
means  the  qualities  of  things  themselves  which  are  the  causes  of 
ideas  in  us  they  are  not  only  not  distinctly  discerned  but  not  dis- 
cerned at  all.  But  if  he  means  primary  ideas,  then  some  ideas 
operate.  But  ideas  are  nothing  but  effects  in  us.  Therefore  some 
ideas  are  causes  which  are  nothing  but  effects.  Thus  Locke  comes 
to  the  conclusion  of  his  sentence,  "whereby  we  may  also  come  to 
know  what  ideas  are,  and  what  are  not,  resemblances  of  some- 
thing really  existing  in  the  bodies  we'  denominate  from  them."  It 
is  clear  that  we  can  not  substitute  here.  He  implies  that  he  has 
shown  that  some  ideas  resemble  and  that  some  do  not  resemble  the 
qualities  in  things  themselves  which  are  their  causes.  If  we  sub- 
stituted as  before  Locke  would  be  saying  that  some  ideas  resemble 
other  ideas  and  that  some  ideas  do  not.  At  this  point  Locke's 
empiricism  and  rationalism  meet  and  result  in  a  nest  of  an- 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


tinomies.  Aside  from  the  truth  or  falsity  of  anything  he  says,  it 
is  impossible  to  give  a  coherent  statement  to  his  doctrine  of  pri- 
mary and  secondary  qualities.  The  most  serious  charge  that  can 
be  brought  against  him  at  this  point  is  that,  expressly  and  with 
malice  prepense,  he  gives  himself  the  license  to  say  one  thing  and 
mean  another. 

27.  THE  ORIGIN  OF  PRIMARY  IDEAS.  Locke  says,  as  we  have 
seen,  that  secondary  qualities  exist  in  things  themselves  only  in 
so  far  as  anything  exists  in  its  cause.  By  this  he  admits  that 
there  is  something  in  things  themselves  corresponding  to,  but  not 
resembling,  secondary  common-sense  qualities.  If  we  assume 
some  cognitive  being  who  is  capable  of  perceiving  things  them- 
selves with,  their  primary  or  real  qualities,  as  probably  Locke's 
angels  or  as  God  apprehends  them,  that  being  would  apprehend 
that  a  body  to  which  man  imputes,  or  which  is  the  cause  of,  red- 
ness, is  different  from  a  body  to  which  man  imputes  blueness.  He 
would  perceive  a  difference  in  the  surface,  texture,  or  coagmenta- 
tion  of  parts.  Locke  could  not  escape  this  conclusion.  We  can 
not,  even  theoretically,  say  that  two  bodies  are  identical  in  respect 
of  their  primary  qualities,  but  differ  in  respect  of  their  secondary 
common-sense  qualities.  The  very  fact  that  two  bodies  differ  in 
respect  of  their  secondary  or  imputed  qualities,  shows,  prima 
facie,  that  there  are  powers  in  the  bodies  themselves  adequate  to 
these  effects.  His  doctrine  of  the  cause  of  ideas  depends  upon  this. 
But  this  forces  us  to  our  former  conclusion  that  the  powers  which 
produce  secondary  common-sense  qualities  in  us,  are  the  particular 
kinds  of  primary  qualities.  Primary  qualities  as  such  have  only 
nominal  existence.  If  a  real  body  produces  any  idea  in  us,  it  does 
so  by  virtue  of  its  particular  powers.  How  is  it  possible,  we  may 
ask,  for  primary  ideas  to  arise?  They  could  arise  only  through 
that  which  causes  secondary  ideas.  But  this  cause  seems  to  be 
exhausted  in  producing  secondary  ideas.  Whence  comes  this  addi- 
tional effect?  The  only  mode  in  which  such  additional  effects 
could  exist  would  be  as  particular  extensions,  forms,  motions,  etc. 
General  ideas,  as  he  maintains,  are  abstractions.  There  would  be 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  59 


in  the  mind,  when  some  real  body  produced  ideas  in  us,  distinct 
ideas  of  color,  taste,  smell,  etc.,  as  the  case  may  be,  and,  in  addi- 
tion, distinct  ideas  of  particular  extension,  figure,  ^notion,  etc. 
The  cause  of  secondary  ideas  would  thus  be  the  cause  of  primary 
ideas.  Since  primary  ideas  have  no  sense  inlets  of  their  own,  they 
have  to  come  in  more  or  less  freely,  through  the  inlets  of  secondary 
ideas.  But  when  I  look  at  a  red  rose,  the  complex  idea  in  my 
mind,  I  see  clearly,  according  to  the  corpuscular  theory  of  light, 
that  that  which  causes  the  distinct  idea  redness,  is  not  the  cause 
of  the  particular  idea  of  extension  or  figure  I  perceive.  I  get  the 
same  idea  of  redness  whether  I  look  at  the  whole  rose,  at  a  single 
petal,  or  a  part  of  a  petal.  The  cause  of  the  idea  of  redness,  is, 
by  the  theory,  due  to  the  fine  parts  of  the  flower,  and  not  to  its 
gross  outlines.  How  do  these  gross  outlines  get  before  the  mind 
on  the  backs  of  the  configuration  of  the  fine  parts?  If  we  take 
Locke's  assertion  that  figure  is  the  limit  of  color,  in  a  visual  object, 
then  we  regard  the  real  body  as  having  a  gross  extensity  and  form 
made  up  of  finer  extensities  and  forms,  which  fine  extensities  and 
forms  are  the  cause  of  the  secondary  ideas.  The  gross  parts  are 
nothing  but  the  aggregation  of  the  fine  parts.  But  the  fine  parts 
produce  ideas  which  are  not  like  them.  How,  then,  can  any  aggre- 
ation  of  fine  parts  produce  an  idea  that  is  like  it?  At  this  point 
on  the  real  petal  the  fine  parts  produce  the  idea  of  redness,  at 
other  points  the  fine  parts  do  the  same.  How  can  the  summation 
of  effects  produce  anything  but  just  redness?  Locke  might  say 
that  the  addition  of  effects  would  be  observed  by  the  mind  as  more 
and  more,  and  hence  the  idea  of  voluminousness  and  extension. 
But  this,  if  true,  is  introspective  evidence.  There  is  nothing  in  his 
doctrine  to  show  why  the  powers  which  produce  secondary  ideas 
At  the  same  time  produce  primary  ideas.  He  himself  says  it  is 
inconceivable  how  primary  qualities  of  bodies  produce  secondary 
Ideas  in  us  so  Unlike  their  causes.  It  is  likewise  inconceivable, 
if  they  do,  how  they  could  produce  anything  else.  But  when  Locke 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


speaks  of  the  cause  of  primary  and  secondary  ideas,  he  seems  to 
regard  the  effect  of  the  fine  parts  of  the  body  as  secondary  ideas, 
and  the  body  as  an  extended  whole  as  the  cause  of  primary  ideas. 
He  seems  to  regard  the  cause  of  primary  ideas  as  in  some  way  en- 
tirely distinct  from  the  cause  of  secondary  ideas.  But  as  we  see, 
the  cause  of  secondary  ideas  has  the  load  to  carry.  Besides  pro- 
ducing secondary  ideas,  it  must  produce  various  other  primary 
ideas  than  extension.  In  the  case  of  the  red  rose,  besides  the 
particular  extension  and  figure,  it  must  produce  the  idea  of  dura- 
tion, rest  or  motion,  solidity,  and  more  remarkable  than  all,  the 
idea  of  existence.  But  the  existence  of  what,  since  there  are  no 
universals?  Existence  of  the  body  with  its  primary  powers, 
which  powers  produce  ideas  in  us.  But  how  the  quality  of  exist- 
ence can  produce  the  idea  of  existence  is  the  most  incomprehensi- 
ble of  all  Locke's  assumptions.  Why  does  the  idea  of  real  existence 
attach  itself  just  to  the  primary  ideas?  Why  does  it  attach  itself 
to  itself?  Moreover,  how  can  we  distinguish  dreams,  hallucina- 
tions, or  everyday  illusions,  from  reality?  If  we  say  false  judg- 
ment, then  reality  is  perceived  by  true  judgment  and  the  idea  of 
real  existence  is  a  product  of  judgment,  and  not  an  effect  in  us 
like  the  ideas  of  red  or  sweet,  or  particular  form.  Locks  leaves 
unexplained,  therefore,  the  origin  of  primary  ideas. 

28.  PRIMARY  QUALITIES  OF  MIND. — In  the  case  of  primary  qual- 
ities of  mind,  there  are  peculiarities  not  found  in  the  case  of  pri- 
mary qualities  of  material  bodies.  In  the  first  place  the  mind  is  an 
"intermediary"  or  active-passive  substance.  It  may  be  conjectured, 
he  says,  that  "Pure  spirit,  viz.,  God,  is  only  active ;  pure  matter  is 
only  passive;  those  things  that  are  both  active  and  passive,  we 
may  judge  to  partake  of  both."*  The  ideas  from  reflection  are 
produced  in  the  mind  by  itself.  The  mind  perceives  its  own  pro- 
cesses. These  processes  are  active  or  self-caused  processes  and 
receptive  processes.  In  time,  the  receptive  processes  come  first. 
"In  time  the  mind  comes  to  reflect  on  its  own  operations,  about  the 
ideas  got  by  sensation,  and  thereby  stores  itself  with  a  new  set  of 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  61 


ideas,  which  I  call  ideas  from  reflection."  Again  there  are  no 
sense  organs  or  inlets  for  ideas  from  reflection.  Nor  does  the 
distinction  between  primary  and  secondary  qualities,  if  there  be 
such  a  distinction,  rest  upon  the  same  ground  as  the  same  distinc- 
tion with  respect  to  those  of  material  bodies.  In  regard  to  the 
primary  ideas  which  are  common  to  minds  and  material  bodies,  the 
way  in  which  these  qualities  produce  ideas  in  us  is  necessarily 
different,  but  the  idea  is  the  same.  In  the  case  of  the  mind  we 
have  a  new  application  of  immediate  apprehension.  Instead  of 
being  applied  only  to  ideas,  it  is  applied,  in  respect  of  existence 
for  example,  to  the  quality  itself.  There  are  other  ideas,  as  that 
of  relation,  which  present  unique  problems.  The  status  of  con- 
viction, beliefs,  and  revelation  is  also  of  peculiar  importance.  In 
the  first  place,  what  are  the  qualities  of  mind? 

The  original  causes  of  our  ideas  from  reflection,  Locke  says, 
are  "perceptivity,  or  the  power  of  perception  or  thinking ;  motiv- 
ity,  or  the  power  of  moving,"  or  "the  power  of  beinning  or  stop- 
ping several  thoughts  or  motions,"*  and  existence,  duration,  andx 
number,  f  The  primary  ideas  corresponding  to  these  powers  of 
the  mind  are  perception,  volition,  existence,  duration,  and  number. 
It  is  thus  seen  that  the  mind  has  only  two  distinctive  primary 
powers.  "The  ideas  we  have  belonging  and  peculiar  to  spirit  are 
thinking  and  will,  or  a  power  of  putting  body  into  motion  by 
thought,  and,  which  is  consequent  to  it,  liberty.  For  as  body  can 
not  but  communicate  its  motion  by  impulse  to  another  body,  which 
it  meets  with  at  rest,  so  the  mind  can  put  bodies  into  motion,  or 
forbear  to  do  so,  as  it  pleases."J  Motivity  is  a  power  of  the  mind 
not  only  to  cause  movements  among  material  things  but  to  move 
the  mind  itself  in  space.  "There  is  no  reason  why  it  should  be 
thought  strange,  that  I  make  mobility  belong  to  the  spirit:  for 
haVing  no  other  idea  of  motion  but  change  of  distance  with  other 
beings  that  are  considered  as  at  rest,— and  finding  that  spirits, 
as  well  as  bodies,  can  not  operate  but  where  they  are,  and  that 
spirits  do  operate  at  several  times  in  several  places,— I  can  not 

»II.  xxiii.   80. 
til.  xxl.  78. 
*II.  xzlil.  18. 


82  A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


but  attribute  change  of  place  to  all  finite  spirits  (for  of  the  in- 
finite spirit  I  speak  not  here).  For  my  soul  being  a  real  being, 
as  well  as  my  body,  is  certainly  capable  of  changing  distance  with 
any  other  body,  or  being,  as  body  itself,  and  so  is  capable  of 
motion. "§  The  mind  thus  considered  is  an  intermediate  sub- 
stance between  God  and  matter,  or  at  least  partaking  of  the 
powers  both  of  pure  spirit  and  pure  matter.  Although  Locke 
uses  thinking  and  perceptivity  as  equivalent,  it  seems  possible 
that  the  former  is  a  more  inclusive  term,  meaning  whatever  goes 
on  in  the  mind.  "Believing,  doubting,  intending,  fearing,  hoping ; 
all  which  are  but  the  several  modes  of  thinking."  But  perception 
as  we  shall  see  is  regarded  by  Locke  as  a  passive  power,  while 
thinking  seems  for  him  to  include  volition  or  active  power. 
Thinking,  however,  is  not  used  by  him  to  include  the  power  to 
move  our  bodies.  Thinking,  and  volition  seem  to  partially  over- 
lap, but  perception  and  volition  do  not. 

29.  SECONDARY  QUALITIES  OF  MIND.  Primary  qualities  of 
bodies  are  distinguished  from  secondary  qualities  for  two  reasons, 
as  we  saw :  the  former  are  more  important  for  mechanical  physics, 
and  they  do  not  depend  upon  the  presence  of  a  percipient  being. 
Secondary  qualities  of  bodies  are  made  up  of  or  are  the  specific 
instances  of  the  primary.  There  is  no  conceivable  connection  be- 
tween the  primary  quality  and  secondary  idea.  Does  or  can  Locke 
make  this  distinction  with  respect  to  the  qualities  of  mind  ?  If  we 
were  to  treat  mind  as  we  do  matter,  the  symmetrical  way  would 
be  to  study,  not  ourselves  but  other  minds.  But  of  these,  he  says, 
"we  have  no  ideas  but  what  we  draw  from  that  of  our  own,  by 
reflecting  on  the  operations  of  our  own  souls  within  us,  as  far  as 
they  can  come  within  our  observation."!  "That  there  are  minds 
and  thinking  beings  in  other  men  as  well  as  himself,  every  man 
has  a  reason  from  their  words  and  actions,  to  be  satisfied."} 
Other  minds  produce  no  ideas  in  us.  We  have  then  only  ourselves 
to  observe  in  determining  the  qualities  of  mind.  Locke,  however, 
leaves  us  in  the  dark  about  secondary  qualities,  although  from  his 

JII.  xxlil.  19. 
rv.  in.  17. 
rv.  in.  27. 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  63 


precise  designation  of  primary  qualities  it  is  to  be  inferred 
that  there  are  secondary  qualities.  He  seems  to  include  secondary 
ideas  by  classifying  all  the  ideas  from  reflection  under  one  of 
the  five  primary  ideas.  Believing,  doubting,  fearing,  knowing, 
loving,  hating,  and  the  like  are  just  kinds  of  perceptions  or  think- 
ing. One  should  think  that  ideas  of  emotion  would  be  most  suit- 
ably classed  as  secondary,  either  from  perception  or  volition,  but 
he  does  not  do  it.  I  may  perceive  that  I  fear  or  hate,  but  fearing 
or  hating  is  not  perceiving.  Locke  could  say,  just  as  he  does  in 
the  other  case,  that  it  is  inconceivable  how  certain  combinations 
of  perceptivity,  motivity,  existence,  duration,  and  number  pro- 
duce these  ideas  of  emotion  in  us,  but  that  God  has  ordained  that 
such  emotions  be  annexed  to  such  combinations.  It  being  as  in- 
conceivable how  the  perceiving  of  a  bear  can  cause  the  idea  of 
fear,  as  how  a  certain  texture  of  a  flower  petal  can  cause  the  idea 
of  blue.  Since  emotions  are  fleeting,  while  perceptivity,  motivity, 
etc.,  we  have  always,  whether  we  have  ideas  or  not,  it  would  seem 
that  emotions  are  the  most  suitable  ideas  from  reflection  to  be  re- 
garded as  secondary.  The  same  inconsistencies  would  develop 
here  as  in  the  other  case,  but  it  would  make  his  discussion  more 
symmetrical. 

The  ideas  of  pleasure  and  pain  are  received  according  to  Locke, 
both  from  sensation  and  reflection.*  In  the  case  of  pleasure  and 
pain  from  sensation,  it  is  clear  that  they  are  secondary  ideas  due 
to  the  primary  qualities  of  material  bodies,  as  in  cuts,  burns,  and 
bruises.  But  Locke  insists  these  ideas  are  caused  also  by  reflec- 
tion. They  must  therefore  be  secondary.  Thus,  ideas  of  love, 
hate,  joy,  sorrow,  hope,  fear,  anger,  despair,  and  envy,  may  be 
secondary  ideas  from  reflection,  depending  on  and  caused  by  some 
conformation  or  combination  of  perceptivity,  motivity,  existence, 
duration,  and  number. 

If  we  suppose  these  ideas  of  emotion,  which  Locke  treats  gen- 
erally as  modes  of  pleasure  and  pain,f  to  be  the  same,  whether 
caused  by  primary  qualities  of  material  bodies  or  of  minds,  the 

•n.  xx.  vii.. 
tn.  xx. 


64  A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


question  arises  how  two  such  diverse  causes  can  produce  the  same 
effects.  Locke  does  not  answer  this  question  except  in  so  far  as  to 
say  that  the  infinitely  wise  Author  of  our  being  has  annexed  these 
ideas  "to  almost  all  our  ideas."  As  to  pleasure,  "if  this  were 
wholly  separated  from  all  our  outward  sensations  and  inward 
thoughts,  we  should  have  no  reason  to  prefer  one  thought  or  action 
to  another ;  negligence  to  attention,  or  motion  to  rest.  And  so  we 
should  neither  stir  our  bodies,  nor  employ  our  minds,  but  let  our 
thoughts  (if  I  may  so  call  it)  run  adrift,  without  any  direction 
or  design;  and  suffer  the  ideas  of  our  minds,  like  unregarded 
shadows,  to  make  their  appearances  there,  as  it  happened,  without 
attending  to  them."!  "Pain  has  the  same  efficiency  and  use  to  set 
us  on  work  that  pleasure  has,  we  being  as  ready  to  employ  our 
faculties  to  avoid  that,  as  to  pursue  this."f  The  part  in  which 
we  are  interested  here  is  not  the  divine  purpose  in  the  presence 
of  ideas  of  pleasure  and  pain,  but  that  such  ideas  are  annexed,  as 
an  effect  to  a  cause,  to  the  primary  qualities  both  of  mind  and 
matter.  Locke  goes  on  to  say,  "only  this  is  worth  our  considera- 
tion, that  pain  is  often  produced  by  the  same  objects  and  ideas 
that  produce  pleasure  in  us."  Ignoring  this  illegitimate  use  of 
"ideas,"  it  must  be  admitted  that  experience  furnishes  some  justi- 
fication for  the  assertion.  The  same  degree  of  heat  may  be  either 
pleasant  or  unpleasant,  the  same  intellectual  activity  may  likewise 
bring  pleasure  or  pain.  This  peculiarity  can  better  be  explained 
in  the  realm  of  sense  experience  than  in  that  of  reflection.  We 
can  account  for  the  first  by  considering  the  condition  and  office 
of  the  sense  organs,  but  in  ideas  from  reflection  there  are  no  sense 
organs.  How,  for  example,  can  a  certain  complex  idea  from  re- 
flection, an  ideal  of  life,  at  one  time  give  pleasure  and  at  another 
pain  ?  There  would  seem  to  be  an  immediate  relation  of  acquaint- 
ance in  each  case,  and  no  room  for  any  disquieting  factor  to  enter. 
If  we  may  say  that  the  ideal  fits  into  our  life  and  personality  at 
one  time,  but  after  we  have  developed,  that  there  is  no  longer 
harmony,  then  we  have  adopted  a  new  cause  for  ideas  of  pleasure 

*II.  vii.   3. 
tH.  vii.  4. 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  65 


and  pain.  But  without  some  such  explanation,  we  must  fall  back 
on  the  good  pleasure  of  God.  But  however  we  try  to  explain  their 
presence  and  their  numerous  modes,  the  explanation  that  fits  the 
ideas  of  pleasure  and  pain  from  sensation  will  not  fit  those  from 
reflection.  We  are  left  with  mystery.  Secondary  ideas  from  re- 
flection are  thus  treated  by  Locke  with  more  vagueness,  if  that 
be  possible,  than  secondary  ideas  from  sensation. 

30.  ORGANS  OF  INTERNAL  SENSE.  Locke  says,  "I  pretend  not 
to  teach,  but  to  inquire,  and  therefore  can  not  but  confess  here 
again,  that  external  and  internal  sensation  are  the  only  passages 
that  I  can  find  of  Knowledge  to  the  understanding.  These  alone, 
as  far  as  I  can  discover,  are  the  windows  by  which  light  is  let  into 
this  dark  room :  for  methinks  the  understanding  is  not  much  un- 
like a  closet  wholly  shut  from  light,  with  only  some  little  opening 
left,  to  let  in  external  visible  resemblances,  or  ideas  of  things 
without:  would  the  pictures  coming  into  such  a  dark  room  but 
stay  there,  and  lie  so  orderly  as  to  be  found  upon  occasion,  it  would 
very  much  resemble  the  understanding  of  a  man,  in  reference  to 
all  objects  of  sight  and  the  ideas  of  them.'**  It  is  not  unlikely  that 
Locke  was  very  familiar  with  the  fact  that  in  a  darkened  room  a 
small  aperture  in  the  blind  will  allow  images  of  outside  objects  to 
be  projected  against  the  walls.  He  doubtless  knew  the  essential 
facts  of  a  camera  obscura,  and  it  is  certain  he  knew  of  retinal 
images. 

Although  this  figure  of  the  dark-room  illustrates  the  entrance 
of  ideas  from  sensation  it  is  confusing  when  applied  to  ideas  from 
reflection.  Locke  seems  to  put  internal  and  external  sense  on  an 
equality.  They  are  both  inlets  or  posterns  or  windows  through 
which  ideas  enter.  Each  furnishes  the  mind  with  a  unique  kind 
of  ideas.  The  dark-room  has  two  chinks;  through  one  come  re- 
semblances or  representations  of  external  material  objects; 
through  the  other  representations  of  the  mind's  own  processes. 
The  first  is  evidently  the  sense  organs  and  the  brain  with  its 
afferent  connections.  What  is  the  second  chink?  To  take  the  il- 
•n.  xi.  17. 


66  A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


lustration  as  it  stands  there  would  have  to  be  an  external-internal 
world  of  causes  for  ideas  from  reflection.  The  mind  would  be 
the  passive  observer  for  both  kinds  of  ideas.  The  mind  as  ob- 
server would  need  only  its  white  paper  passivity ;  for  the  so-called 
powers  of  mind  would  have  to  be  given  to  those  hypothetical  ob- 
jects in  this  external-internal  world.  Our  repugnancy  to  uncaused 
ideas  would  demand  this.  This  realm  of  reflection  would  be  the 
proper  place  to  put  the  substratum  for  memories  and  fancies.  We 
should  thus  have  three  realms.  The  external  world,  the  internal 
world,  and  the  world  of  ideas.  The  substratum  for  ideas  of  either 
sort  would  be  an  I-know-not-what.  The  mind,  instead  of  being 
illustrated  as  a  protoplasmic  cell  with  a  protecting  ectoderm, 
would  have  to  be  regarded  as  a  link  or  isthmus  between  the  two 
realms  of  reality  like  the  neck  of  an  hour-glass.  If  we  imagine 
this  neck  to  be  a  dark  cabinet  with  an  opening  on  either  side  for 
the  entrance  of  the  two  kinds  of  ideas  from  their  respective 
realms,  we  have  a  beautifully  symmetrical  illustration. 

It  is  evident  that  ideas  from  reflection  can  not  be  illustrated 
thus.  Since  ideas  from  reflection  are  representations  of  the 
mind's  own  processes,  the  mind  has  to  get  out  of  itself  and  observe 
itself  at  work.  In  order  to  illustrate  this  by  means  of  a  dark- 
room and  a  chink,  it  would  be  necessary  to  have  two  dark  cabinets, 
the  internal  sense  cabinet  adjoining  the  external  sense  cabinet 
with  an  opening  into  it,  by  means  of  which  representations  or 
images  of  what  went  on  in  the  external  sense  cabinet  might  be 
produced  in  the  other.  We  should  thus  have  one  external  world 
and  two  cabinets  for  the  reception  and  elaboration  of  its  influ- 
ences. This  seems  to  illustrate  Locke's  saying,  that  we  do  not 
perceive  without  perceiving  that  we  perceive.  We  must  neces- 
sarily perceive  that  we  perceive  that  we  perceive.  Hence  an  in- 
definite regress.  Supposing  that  this  is  not  absurd,  it  remains  to 
be  explained  what  and  where  this  reflective  peep-hole  is.  But 
Locke  gives  us  no  account  of  internal  sense  organs.  Presumably 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  67 


there  are  none.  But  since  Locke  gives  so  much  importance  to  our 
external  sense  organs,  and  since  he  speaks  of  sensation  and  re- 
flection as  the  two  sources  of  all  our  ideas,  we  seem  justified  in 
looking  for  internal  sense  organs;  and  it  is  surely  against  his 
doctrine  that  we  do  not  find  them. 

It  seems  that  the  mind  perceives  immediately  its  own  processes, 
i.  e.,  it  is  self-conscious.  I  perceive  that  I  perceive.  Is  it  possible 
to  perceive  that  I  do  not  perceive?  What  he  says  about  ideas 
from  privative  causes*  leads  us  to  suppose  that  it  is  possible.  His 
general  position  seems  to  demand  it.  If  the  mind  can  some  way 
observe  what  is  going  on  in  the  dark-room,  it  must  likewise  ob- 
serve that  there  is  nothing  going  on  there  when  the  senses  are 
closed.  It  is  thus  theoretically  possible,  according  to  this  position, 
for  the  mind  to  observe  itself  in  that  original  blank  state,  the 
tabula  rasa.  But  this  is  contradictory;  for  then  the  tabula  rasa 
would  have  on  it  "this  is  a  tabula  rasa."  It  is  clear  that  the  mind 
can  not  perceive  that  it  does  not  perceive.  Ideas  from  privative 
causes  must  be  based  upon  something  positive.  There  must  be 
some  idea  representative  of  some  reality,  which  is  the  means  by 
which  ideas  of  reflection  come  to  be,  the  idea  of  something  like  a 
sense  organ.  We  must  ask,  does  "the  eye  of  the  mind"  have  any 
significance?  Locke  seems  to  regard  the  mind's  eye  as  that  idea 
from  reflection,  active  attention,  i.  e.,  the  empirical  system  of 
ideas,  or  self,  which  determintes  and  dominates  what  ideas  shall 
be  objects.  For  example,  he  says,  "How,  as  it  were  in  an  instant, 
do  our  minds  with  one  glance  see  all  the  parts  of  a  demonstra- 
tion, "f  Now,  since  the  ideas  of  the  external  sense  organs  come  in 
as  other  ideas  do,  it  is  nothing  against  the  validity  of  our  judg- 
ment that  they  are  caused  by  real  sense  organs,  so  we  can  say 
that  although  the  idea  of  attention  comes  in  as  other  ideas  from 
reflection,  that  fact  does  not  hinder  it  from  being  representative 
of  some  real  mind's  eye.  Locke  seems  to  regard  the  mind  as  act- 
ing as  a  whole  in  reflection,  hence  the  mind  must  be  its  own 
reflective  sense  organ.  Just  as  the  real  bodily  sense  organs  do  not 
"see"  external  objects  but  are  the  means  of  those  objects  produc- 

•II.  viil.  1-6. 
til.  be.   10. 


63  A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


ing  those  ideas  in  us,  so  the  mind  does  not  "see"  itself ;  but  in  its 
capacity  of  a  sense  organ  produces  not  only  ideas  of  itself  in  itself, 
i.  e.,  the  unity,  system,  and  coherence  among  ideas,  but  also  dis- 
tinctive ideas  of  its  own  processes,  perception,  volition,  believing, 
knowing,  etc.,  which  appear  as  acts  of  the  empirical  self,  just  as 
seeing,  hearing,  etc.,  appear  as  acts  of  the  ideas  of  bodily  sense 
organs. 

31.  PERCEPTIVITY  AND  MOTIVITY.  Locke  is  often  understood 
as  teaching  that  the  mind  is  at  first  purely  passive.  This  is  un- 
warranted. Perceptivity  and  motivity,  or  perception  and  volition, 
are  primary  qualities  or  powers  of  mind,  and  the  distinctive  pri- 
mary qualities.  Being  primary  they  are  both  present  in  experi- 
ence, even  while  the  mind  is  being  furnished.  If  perceptivity  is, 
as  Locke  says,  "the  first  step  and  degree  towards  knowledge,  and 
the  inlet  of  all  materials  of  it,"*  it  is  first  in  a  logical  sense  not  a 
chronological  one,  although  Locke  inconsistently  mentions  the 
temporal  priority  of  these  materials.  The  mind  being  a  passive- 
active  being,  it  can  not  be  in  time  at  first  passive  and  later  active. 
His  purpose  in  treating  the  mind  first  as  a  tabula  rasa,  is,  ob- 
viously, that  he  can  not  treat  all  qualities  of  the  mind  at  once,  and 
that  since  in  a  logical  order  the  materials  of  knowledge  must  be 
furnished  before  knowledge  is  possible,  the  mind  in  its  passive 
capacity  should  be  regarded  first. 

We  do  not  simply  perceive  or  merely  act,  but  we  think,  which 
includes  both.  Thinking  is  that  which  takes  place  in  the  mind  as 
a  matter  of  fact.  Perception  as  well  as  volition  are  abstractions. 
They  are  the  results  of  an  analysis  of  thinking.  "Perception,  as  it 
is  the  first  faculty  of  the  mind,  exercised  about  our  ideas ;  so  it  is 
the  first  and  simplest  idea  we  get  from  reflection,  and  is  by  some 
called  thinking  in  general.  Though  thinking,  in  the  propriety  of 
the  English  tongue,  signifies  that  sort  of  operation  in  the  mind 
about  its  ideas,  wherein  the  mind  is  active ;  where  it,  with  some 
degree  of  voluntary  attention,  considers  anything.  For  in  bare 
perception,  the  mind  is,  for  the  most  part,  only  passive ;  and  what 
*n.  ix.  15. 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  69 


it  perceives,  it  can  not  avoid  perceiving/"1  But  as  Locke  points 
out  the  mind  may  be  engrossed  in  some  object  to  the  exclusion  of 
all  other  ideas,  so  the  mind  by  its  quality  of  motivity  may  modify 
if  not  wholly  determine  what  ideas  it  shall  perceive.  "How  often 
may  a  man  observe  in  himself,  that  whilst  his  mind  is  intently  em- 
ployed in  the  contemplation  of  some  objects,  and  curiously  sur- 
veying some  ideas  that  are  there,  it  takes  no  notice  of  impressions 
of  sounding  bodies  made  upon  the  organ  of  hearing  with  the  same 
alteration  that  uses  to  be  for  the  producing  of  sound.  A  sufficient 
impulse  there  may  be  on,  the  organ ;  but  if  not  reaching  the  obser- 
vation of  the  mind,  there  follows  no  perception;  and  though  the 
motion  that  uses  to  produce  the  idea  of  sound  be  made  in  the  ear, 
yet  no  sound  is  heard.  Want  of  sensation,  in  this  case,  is  not 
through  any  defect  in  the  organ,  or  that  the  man's  ears  are  less 
affected  than  at  other  times  when  he  does  hear:  but  that  which 
uses  to  produce  the  idea,  though  conveyed  in  by  the  usual  organ, 
not  being  taken  notice  of  in  the  understanding,  and  so  imprinting 
no  idea  in  the  mind,  there  follows  no  sensation."f  It  would  appear 
that  the  mind  is,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  not  merely  a  tabula  rasa. 
"The  perception  of  ideas  being  (as  I  conceive)  to  the  soul,  what 
motion  is  to  the  body,  not  its  essence,  but  one  of  its  operations/'^ 
"Hence  it  is  probable  that  thinking  is  the  action,  not  the  essence 
of  the  soul."§  Logically  perception  or  perceptivity,  is  purely 
passive  and  volition  or  motivity  is  purely  active.  Thinking  is 
both.  Perceptivity  and  motiVity  are  qualities  the  mind  has  from 
the  very  first. 

32.  ACTIVE  AND  PASSIVE  POWERS  OF  MIND  AS  ACTUALLY  IN- 
SEPARABLE.. Perception  is  the  same  thing  as  "having  ideas."** 
"What  perception  is,  every  one  will  know  better  by  reflecting  on 
what  he  does  himself,  what  he  sees,  hears,  feels,  etc.,  or  thinks, 
than  by  any  discourse  of  mine.  Whoever  reflects  on  what  passes 
in  his  own  mind,  can  not  miss  it,  and  if  he  does  not  reflect,  all  the 
words  in  the  world  can  not  make  him  have  any  notion  of  it."ff 
Locke  speaks  of  ideas  being  "introduced,"  "imprinted,"  "pro- 

*II.   ix.    1.  §11.  xix.  4. 

tH.  ix.  4.  **II.  I.  9. 

JII.  i.  10.  ttH.  ix.  2. 


70  A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


duced,"  "conveyed  in,"  "received."  The  mind  is  "furnished"  with 
ideas;  they  "happen"  to  it;  they  are  brought  before  it;  they  are 
its  objects.  In  having  ideas,  Locke  appears  to  teach  that  the  mind 
is  passive.  This  plastic  power  or  quality  is  perception.  Percep- 
tion qua  perception  is  passive.  It  is  a  sequacious  power.  In 
treating  the  mind  thus  in  respect  of  one  of  its  qualities,  Locke  is 
abstracting.  The  mind  is  not,  according  to  Locke,  purely  passive 
in  perception.  It  is  both  active  and  passive,  not  one  or  the  other. 
"If  our  knowledge  were  altogether  necessary,  all  men's  knowledge 
would  not  only  be  alike,  but  every  man  would  know  all  that  is 
knowable :  and  if  it  were  wholly  voluntary,  some  men  so  little  re- 
gard or  value  it,  that  they  would  have  extreme  little  or  none  at  all. 
Men  that  have  senses  can  not  choose  but  receive  some  ideas  by 
them ;  and  if  they  have  memory,  they  cannot  but  retain  some  of 
them;  and  if  they  have  any  distinguishing  faculty,  can  not  but 
perceive  the  agreement  or  disagreement  of  some  of  them  one  with 
another :  as  he  that  has  eyes,  if  he  will  open  them  day  by  day,  can 
not  but  see  some  objects,  and  perceive  a  difference  in  them.  But 
though  a  man  with  his  eyes  open  in  the  light,  can  not  but  see,  yet 
there  be  certain,  objects,  which  he  may  choose  whether  he  will  turn 
his  eyes  to ;  there  may  be  in  his  reach  a  book  containing  pictures 
and  discourses,  capable  to  delight  and  instruct  him,  which  yet  he 
may  never  have  the  will  to  open,  never  take  the  pains  to  look 
into."*  Although  we  can  not  know  things  as  we  please,  yet  there 
is  this  voluntary  element  in  all  that  we  know.  As  John  Burroughs 
says,  "You  must  have  the  bird  in  your  heart  before  you  can  find 
it  in  the  bush."  Locke  is  perfectly  justified  in  treating  the  mind 
in  respect  of  its  passive  power,  if  by  that  he  thinks  he  can  get  a 
better  understanding  of  the  mind.  But  if  by  this  procedure  we 
are  led  to  judge  that  the  mind,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  is  passively 
furnished  with  its  ideas,  our  conclusion  is  erroneous. 

In  the  case  of  ideas  from  reflection  the  mind  is  not  passively 
furnished,  that  is  evident.    The  mind  itself  produces  these  ideas 

•IV.  xili.   1. 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  71 


and  its  passivity  can  not  be  divorced  from  its  activity.    Just  what 
happens,  say,  when  the  mind  has  the  simple  idea  of  perception? 
There  is  no  awareness  of  the  eternal  object,  the  mind,  or  the  im- 
pression, as  such.    The  idea  of  perception  is  produced  by  the  mind 
itself  in  itself.    No  external  object  can  directly  produce  an  idea 
of  perception.    The  mind  itself  is  the  agent  or  organ,  of  this  pro- 
duction.    What  is  it  that  is  produced?    The  conscious  correlate 
of  the  mind  is  the  empirical  self,  the  coherent  system  of  all  the 
ideas  of  whatever  sort.     What  appears  is  this  empirical  self  in 
relation  to  some  idea  from  sensation.     This  relation,  with  its 
terms  is  the  idea  of  perception.    It  may  be  thought  that  Locke 
teaches  that  in  the  case  of  simple  ideas  from  sensation  the  mind 
is  so  far  purely  passive.    Not  so.    According  to  Locke  we  never 
get  any  simple  ideas  from  sensation,  because  the  mind  never  per- 
ceives without  perceiving  that  it  perceives.    Hence,  all  our  ideas 
are  ideas  from  reflection.    Ideas  from  sensation  are  abstractions 
from  ideas  from  reflection.    Therefore,  the  mind  is  not  passively 
furnished  with  ideas  of  any  kind.    All  ideas  are  produced  by  the 
mind  as  active.    The  mind  itself  has  passivity  in  respect  of  out- 
side impressions,  but  the  ideas  are  produced,  not  by  these  impres- 
sions but  by  the  mind  so  impressed.     Of  the  two  powers  or 
qualities,  motivity  appears  to  be  the  most  important.    Whatever 
Locke  may  say  to  the  contrary  this  is  the  outcome  of  his  premises. 
That  this  is  a  true  interpretation  of  Locke  is  shown,  not  only  by 
demonstraton  based  upon  his  premises,  but  also  by  his  plain  state- 
ments.    "These  powers  of  the  mind,  viz.,  of  perceiving,  and  of 
preferring,  are  usually  called  by  another  name :  and  the  ordinary 
way  of  speaking  is,  that  the  understanding  and  will  are  two  fac- 
ulties of  the  mind ;  a  word  proper  enough,  if  it  be  used  as  all  words 
should  be,  so  as  not  to  breed  confusion  in  men's  thoughts,  by  being 
supposed  (as  I  suspect  it  has  been)  to  stand  for  some  real  beings 
in  the  soul,  that  performed  those  actions  of  the  understanding  and 
volition.    For  when  we  say  the  will  is  the  commanding  and  supe- 
rior faculty  of  the  soul;  that  it  is,  or  is  not  free;  that  it  deter- 


72  A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


mines  the  inferior  faculties;  that  it  follows  the  dictates  of  the 
understanding.  etc->though  these  and  the  like  expressions.by  those 
that  carefully  attend  to  their  own  ideas,  and  the  conduct  of  their 
thoughts  more  by  the  evidence  of  things  than  the  sound  of  words, 
may  be  understood  in  a  clear  and  distinct  sense ;  yet  I  suspect,  I 
say,  that  this  way  of  speaking  of  faculties  has  misled  many  into 
a  confused  notion  of  so  many  distinct  agents  in  us,  which  had  their 
several  provinces  and  authorities,  and  did  command,  obey  and 
perform  several  actions,  as  so  many  distinct  beings :  which  has 
been  no  small  occasion  of  wrangling,  obscurity,  and  uncertainty 
in  questions  relating  to  them."*  Perception  and  volition  are  thus 
not  separate  faculties  or  beings  in  the  mind,  as  the  assumption  of 
pure  passive  perception  would  have  them.  In  showing  that  we 
get  the  clearest  idea  of  active  power  from  spirit,  he  says,  "Nor 
have  we  of  active  power  (which  is  the  more  proper  signification 
of  the  word  power)  fewer  instances:  since  whatever  change  is 
observed,  the  mind  must  collect  a  power  somewhere  able  to  make 
that  change,  as  well  as  a  possibility  in  the  thing  itself  to  receive 
it.  But  yet,  if  we  will  consider  attentively,  bodies,  by  our  senses, 
do  not  afford  us  so  clear  and  distinct  an  idea  of  active  power  as 
we  have  from  reflection  on  the  operation  of  our  minds.  For  al) 
power  relating  to  action, — and  there  being  but  two  sorts  of 
action  whereof  we  have  any  idea,  viz.,  thinking  and 
motion, — let  us  consider  whence  we  have  the  clearest  ideas 
of  the  powers  which  produce  these  actions."f  Thinking  is  the 
manifestation  of  an  active  power,  and  perception  is  not  distinct 
from  thinking.  The  efficacy  whereby  an  idea  is  changed  or  pro- 
duced, "however  various,  and  the  effects  almost  infinite,  yet  we 
can,  I  think,  conceive  it,  in  intellectual  agents,  to  be  nothing  else 
but  modes  of  thinking  and  willing."} 

33.  PERCEPTION.  There  are  three  kinds  of  perception :  1.  The 
percepTion^T'ldeas  in  our  minds.  2,  The  perception  of  signifi- 
cation of  signs.  3.  The  perception  of  the  connexion  or  repugnancy, 
agreement  or  disagreement,  that  is  between  any  of  our  ideas. 
All  these  are  attributed  to  the  understanding,  or  the  perceptive 

•II.  xxi.  6. 
til.  xxl.  4. 
JII.  xxii.  11. 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OP  KNOWLEDGE  73 


power,  though  it  be  the  two  latter  only  that  use  allows  us  to  say 
we  understand  "§  "There  can  be  nothing  more  certain  than  that 
the  idea  we  receive  from  an  eternal  object  is  in  our  minds :  this 
is  intuitive  knowledge."**  Since  words  are  only  a  special  kind  of 
ideas,  the  perception  of  the  significance  of  signs,  is  the  perception 
of  the  significance  of  ideas.  And  as  we  shall  see,  all 
simple  ideas  are  held  by  Locke  to  be  signs.  The  percep- 
tion of  agreement  or  disagreement  of  ideas,  involves  a  number  of 
"a  priori"  principles,  or  as  Locke  says,  "peculiar  ways  of  agree- 
ment or  disagreement  of  our  ideas."  Locke  denominates  them 
identity  or  diversity,  relation,  co-existence  or  necessary  connection, 
and  real  existence.  Since  these  various  kinds  of  perception  are 
knowledge,  we  can  apply  to  them  Locke's  three  degrees,  viz.,  in- 
tuitive, demonstrative,  and  sensitive.  In  the  first  there  is  an  im- 
mediate relation  of  acquaintance  between  the  mind  and  its  ideas. 
This  kind  of  perception  gives  the  highest  degree  of  certainty.J 
"When  the  mind  can  not  bring  its  ideas  together,  as  by  their  im- 
mediate comparison,  and  as  it  were  juxta-position,"  it  perceives 
the  agreement  or  disagreement  by  "intervening"  ideas,  and  this 
is  reasoning.  When  clearly  perceived  it  is  demonstration.  Lastly, 
the  perception  of  the  existence  of  particular  external  objects  com- 
pletes the  account.  Yet,  there  appears  to  be  another  degree  of 
perception  which  has  a  higher  certainty  than  any  of  these.  This 
is  revelation.  Here  the  mind  is  purely  passive.  No  reaction  or 
doubt  is  possible,  not  even  when  the  idea  or  proposition  disagrees 
with  common  experience  and  the  ordinary  course  of  things.  "The 
reason  whereof  is,  because  the  testimony  is  of  such  an  one  as  can 
not  deceive,  nor  be  deceived,  and  that  is  of  God  himself.  This 
carries  with  it  an  assurance  beyond  doubt,  evidence  beyond  excep- 
tion. This  is  called  by  a  peculiar  name,  revelation ;  and  our  assent 
to  it,  faith;  which  as  absolutely  determines  our  minds,  and  as 
perfectly  excludes  all  wavering,  as  our  knowledge  itself;  and  we 
may  as  well  doubt  of  our  own  being,  as  we  can  whether  any  revel- 
ation from  God  be  true."§  Evidently  revelation  has  a  peculiar 

511.  xxi.  5.  JIV.  ii.  1. 

**IV.  ii.  14  §IV.  xvl.  14. 


74  A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


potency,  but  just  what  this  is,  is  not  evident.  Locke  says  God 
"illuminates  the  mind  with  a  supernatural  light.'*  "If  he  would 
have  us  to  assent  to  the  truth  of  any  proposition,  he  either  evi- 
dences that  truth  by  the  usual  methods  of  natural  reason,  or  else 
makes  it  known  to  be  the  truth  which  he  would  have  us  assent  to, 
by  his  authority;  and  convinces  us  that  it  is  from  him,  by  some 
marks  which  reason  can  not  be  mistaken  in."*  Although  reason 
may  be  used  to  determine  what  is  or  what  is  not  "inspired,"  yet 
it  has  no  power  over  the  matter  of  revelation.  Reason  is  like  the 
chirographist  who  determines  who  has  written  a  given  document, 
but  has  no  authority  over  the  contents  of  the  document.  What 
are  these  "marks"  of  revelation?  Mere  belief  or  enthusiasm  is  no 
sign  of  inspiration.  Neither  is  natural  reason.  "Thus  we  see  the 
holy  men  of  old,  who  had  revelations  from  God,  had  something 
else  besides  that  internal  light  of  assurance  in  their  own  minds,  to 
testify  to  them  that  it  was  from  God.  They  were  not  left  to  their 
own  persuasions  alone,  that  those  persuasions  were  from  God; 
but  had  outward  signs  to  convince  them  of  the  author  of  those 
revelations."!  Thus  we  confront  the  miracles,  the  burning  bush, 
the  loaves  and  fishes,  the  fiery  furnace,  and  all  the  rest.  When 
God  wishes  to  reveal  something  he  not  only  has  to  excite  the 
proper  ideas  in  the  mind  of  the  prophet  but  he  has  to  back  them 
up  with  a  supernatural  occurrence.  Those  of  us  who  get  no  revel- 
ations have  to  depend  upon  natural  reason  and  the  Scriptures 
which  are  attested  revelation.  But  it  is  not  clear  that  the  far- 
famed  prestidigitator,  the  "Prince  of  Darkness,"  might  not  dup- 
licate the  genuine  miracles,  and  have  certain  revelations  of  his 
own  attested  in  Scripture.  Revelation  now  appears  to  be  not  a 
different  kind  of  perception,  but  just  the  perception  of  the  signi- 
fication of  signs.  The  origin  of  the  inspired  ideas  or  their  pecu- 
liar combination,  however,  must  be  attributed  directly  to  God  and 
not  to  sensation  or  reflection. 

•IV.  xlx.  14. 

try.  xix.  IB. 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


«; 


This  completes  our  account  of  the  nature  and  origin  of  knowl- 
edge, according  to  Locke.  Next  comes  the  validity  and  extent  of 
knowledge. 

34.  ^CRITERION  OF  TRUTH.  Locke's  obvious  criterion  of  truth 
is  correspondence  or  agreement.  "Truth,  then,  seems  to  me,  is 
the  proper  import  of  the  word,  to  signify  nothing  but  the  joining 
or  separating  of  signs,  as  the  things  signified  by  them  agree  or 
disagree  one  with  another.  The  joining  or  separating  of  signs, 
here  meant,  is  what  by  another  name  is  called  proposition.  So 
that  truth  properly  belongs  only  to  propositions;  whereof  there 
are  two  sorts,  viz.,  mental  and  verbal;  as  there  are  two  sorts  of 
signs  commonly  made  use  of,  viz.,  ideas  and  words."*  "The  ideas 
in  our  minds  being  only  so  many  perceptions,  or  appearances  there, 
none  of  them  are  false ;  the  idea  of  a  centaur  having  no  falsehood 
in  it,  when  it  appears  in  our  minds,  than  the  name  centaur  has 
falsehood  in  it  when  it  is  pronounced  by  our  mouths  or  written 
on  paper.  For  truth  or  falsehood  lying  always  in  some  affirma- 
tion, or  negation,  mental  or  verbal,  our  ideas  are  not  capable,  any 
of  them,  of  being  false,  till  the  mind  passes  some  judgment  on 
them,  of  being  false;  that  is,  affirms  or  denies  something  of 
them."f  "Whenever  the  mind  refers  any  of  its  ideas  to  anything 
extraneous  to  them,  they  are  then  capable  to  be  called  true  or 
false.  Because  the  mind  in  such  a  reference  makes  a  tacit  suppo- 
sition of  their  conformity  to  that  thing ;  which  supposition,  as  it 
happens  to  be  true  or  false,  so  the  ideas  themselves  come  to  be 
denominated.  "J  There  are  three  classes  of  things,  extraneous  to 
ideas,  to  which  ideas  may  be  said  to  conform  or  agree.  "First, 
when  the  mind  supposes  any  idea  it  has  conformable  to  that  in 
other  men's  minds,  called  by  the  same  common  name,"  as  justice, 
temperance,  religion.  "Secondly,  when  the  mind  supposes  any 
idea  it  has  in  itself  to  be  conformable  to  some  real  existence. 
Thus  the  two  ideas  of  a  man  and  a  centaur,  supposed  to  be  the 
ideas  of  real  substances,  are  the  one  true,  and  the  other  false; 
the  one  having  a  conformity  to  what  has  really  existed,  the  other 
not."  "Thirdly,  when  the  mind  refers  any  of  its  ideas  to  the  real 
*rv.  v.  2. 

til.   MCXii.    8. 

4. 


76  A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


constitution  and  essence  of  anything  whereon  all  its  properties 
depend:  and  thus  the  greatest  part,  if  not  all  our  ideas  of  sub- 
stances are  false."*  "As  to  the  truth  or  falsehood  of  our  ideas,  in 
reference  to  the  real  existence  of  things ;  when  that  is  made  the 
standard  of  their  truth,  none  of  them  can  be  termed  false,  but  only 
our  complex  ideas  of  substances." §  When  I  say  that  the  violet 
is  blue,  that  is  a  true  proposition  because  there  is  something  in 
the  thing  itself  corresponding  to  that  idea.  Mere  likeness  or  un- 
likeness  of  an  idea  to  the  quality  it  represents,  has  nothing  to  do 
with  the  question  of  truth.  The  point  is,  there  must  be  an  agree- 
ment or  conformity  between  the  two  if  the  proposition  is  true. 
All  simple  ideas  are  therefore  true,  or  rather  they  are  neither  true 
nor  false.  Falsity  comes  in  when  complex  ideas  are  compounded 
of  ideas  in  ways  which  nature  never  put  together  and  which  are 
judged  to  represent  some  real  existence. 

In  spite  of  all  the  care  Locke  spends  in  developing  his  agreement 
criterion  of  truth,  he  is  not  able  to  apply  it  in  a  concrete  case; 
and  from  the  nature  of  his  universe  he  can  not  apply  it.  Only 
God,  or  some  of  the  superior  angels  could  apply  it.  According  to 
his  general  theory  the  mind  knows  only  its  ideas.  It  does  not  per- 
ceive the  qualities  of  things,  much  less  the  essence  of  the  substance 
in  which  these  qualities  stick.  The  mind  can  not  judge  that  any 
idea  is  conformable  to  something  that  is  not  and  can  not  be  an 
object  for  the  mind.  This  criterion  of  truth  is  a  useless  piece  of 
machinery. 

35.  PROPOSITIONS.  Making  a  proposition,  according  to  Locke, 
is  the  joining  or  separating  of  signs,  whether  words  or  ideas. 
Verbal  propositions  are  words  joined  or  separated  to  make  an 
affirmation  or  denial.  Mental  propositions  are  ideas  likewise 
related.  Purely  verbal  propositions  are  trifling  and  give  us  no 
knowledge.  For  example,  when  two  abstract  terms  are  affirmed 
one  of  the  other,  the  significance  is  merely  of  sounds,  as  the 
proposition,  "gratitude  is  justice."  Or  again,  when  part  of  a  com- 
plex idea  which  any  term  stands  for  is  predicated  of  that  term, 
e.  g.,  that  "gold  is  a  metal."  The  general  rule  for  purely  verbal 

§11.  xxxli.  5. 
til.  xxxii.  II. 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  77 


propositions  is  that  "whenever  the  distinct  idea  any  real  word 
stands  for  is  not  known  and  considered,  and  something  not  con- 
tained in  the  idea  is  not  affirmed  or  denied  of  it:  there  our 
thoughts  stick  wholly  in  sounds,  and  we  are  able  to  attain  no  real 
truth  or  falsehood/'*  Mental  propositions  are  nothing  but  the 
perception  of  the  connection  or  separation  of  ideas,  which  ideas 
have  been  joined  or  separated  by  the  mind  itself.  True  proposi- 
tions are  those  in  which  the  ideas  joined  or  separated  agree  with 
or  conform  to  the  connection  or  separation  of  the  real  things  of 
which  they  are  signs.  False  propositions  are  those  in  which  they 
do  not.  "Our  knowledge,  therefore,  is  real,  only  so  far  as  there 
is  a  conformity  between  our  ideas  and  the  reality  of  things. "f 
But  where  ideas  are  added  or  separated,  when  their  certain  agree- 
ment or  disagreement  is  not  perceived,  but  presumed  to  be  so: 
that  is  judgment.":!:  All  knowledge  is  thus  prepositional  and  true. 
Judgment  may  or  may  not  be  true.  "Knowledge  being  to  be  had 
only  of  visible  and  certain  truth,  error  is  not  a  fault  of  our  knowl- 
edge but  a  mistake  of  our  judgment,  giving  assent  to  that  which 
is  not  true."§  Since  the  mind  is  not  able  in  all  cases  to  construct 
certainly  true  propositions,  many  of  our  propositions  are  judg- 
ments whose  truth  is  only  probable.  Now,  probability  is  the 
appearance  of  truth.  A  probable  proposition  is  one  that  the  mind 
forms  by  the  process  of  demonstration  from  fallible  proofs.  The 
perception  is  not  immediate  and  certain,  hence  probability  is 
fallibility.  "Our  knowledge,  as  has  been  shown,  being  very  nar- 
row, and  we  not  happy  enough  to  find  certain  truth  in  everything 
which  we  have  occasion  to  consider ;  most  of  the  propositions  we 
think,  reason,  discourse,  nay  act  upon,  are  such,  as  we  can  not 
have  undoubted  knowledge  of  their  truth :  yet  some  of  them  border 
so  near  upon  certainty,  that  we  make  no  doubt  at  all  about  them ; 
but  assent  to  them  as  firmly,  and  act  according  to  that  assent,  as 
resolutely,  as  if  they  were  infallibly  demonstrated,  and  that  our 
knowledge  of  them  was  perfect  and  certain.  But  there  being  de- 
grees herein  from  the  very  neighborhood  of  certainty  and  demon- 

•IV.  vlil.  18.  tlV.  xiv.  4. 

tiv.  iv.  t.  irv.  xx.  i. 


78  A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


stration,  quite  down  to  improbability  and  unlikeness,  even  to  the 
confines  of  impossibility:  and  also  degrees  of  assent  from  full 
assurance  and  confidence,  quite  down  to  conjecture,  doubt,  and 
distrust."*  Why  does  the  mind  separate  or  join  ideas?  Evidently 
the  mind  is  actuated  by  a  truth  purpose.  The  mind  makes  propo- 
sitions which  it  impresses  upon  itself  with  the  purpose  of  con- 
structing something  that  conforms  to  or  agrees  with  reality. 
Since  all  knowledge  is  prepositional,  the  mind's  whole  system  of 
knowledge,  whether  of  nature  or  mind,  is  a  construction  made  by 
the  mind  from  the  raw  material  of  impressions  by  means  of  its 
various  powers  or  qualities,  and  impressed  upon  itself  by  itself, 
and  appearing  before  the  mind  as  ideas  variously  arranged,  with 
the  additional  idea  that  the  proposition  is  made  by  the  mind.  But 
this  conclusion  annihilates  Locke's  agreement  criterion  of  truth. 
36.  AN  EXAMPLE  OF  A  TRUE  PROPOSITION.  Locke  has  led  us 
to  believe  that  a  true  mental  proposition  is  one  in  which  the  ideas 
are  joined  or  separated  in  a  manner  corresponding  to  the  way  in 
which  the  things  of  which  the  ideas  are  marks  or  signs,  are  joined 
or  separated.  As  we  have  already  learned,  the  things  of  which 
ideas  are  marks  or  signs  are  the  primary  and  secondary  qualities, 
critically  regarded,  as  has  been  explained,  and  are  not  and  can  not 
be,  objects  for  the  mind.  The  criterion  of  agreement  or  corre- 
spondence implies  comparison.  But  in  this  case  we  have  to  com- 
pare the  system  of  ideas,  which  we  make  and  know,  with  the 
qualities  of  which  we  are  "incurably  ignorant."  At  best,  we  are, 
as  he  says,  in  the  "twilight  of  probability."  "It  is  evident  the 
mind  knows  not  things  immediately,  but  only  by  the  intervention 
of  the  ideas  it  has  of  them."f  But  qualities  are  not  things  them- 
selves. They  inhere  in  substance ;  but  of  the  real  essence  of  sub- 
stance we  are  more  incurably  ignorant  than  we  are  of  its  qualities. 
Qualities  are  the  elephant  that  supports  ideas ;  real  essence  is  the 
tortoise  that  supports  qualities.  To  inquire  whether  there  is  some 
support  for  real  essence  carries  us  so  far  into  this  mythology  that 
it  is  difficult  to  find  words  to  make  even  a  verbal  judgment.  In 

•rv.  xv.  2. 
trv.  iv,  3, 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  79 


some  way,  however,  God  must  be  the  final  support.  Yet,  to  know 
a  true  proposition  by  the  criterion  of  agreement  it  would  appear 
that  we  should  compare  it  not  only  with  qualities  but  with  es- 
sences, if  not  finally  with  the  divine  substance  and  plan  of  the 
universe.  Locke  does  nothing  of  the  kind.  'In  respect  of  one  kind 
of  ideas  at  least,  he  openly  uses  the  coherence  criterion.  "Our 
complex  ideas  of  modes,"  he  says,  "being  voluntary  collections  of 
simple  ideas,  which  the  mind  puts  together  without  reference  to 
any  real  archetypes  or  standing  patterns  existing  anywhere,  are 
and  cannot  but  be  adequate  ideas.  Because  they  not  being  intended 
for  copies  of  things  really  existing,  but  for  archetypes  made  by  the 
mind  to  rank  and  denominate  things  by,  can  not  want  anything; 
they  having  each  of  them  that  combination  of  ideas,  and  thereby 
that  perfection  which  the  mind  intended  they  should."*  The 
example  he  gives  of  such  an  idea  is  a  triangle.  Perfections  or  logical 
coherence  makes  the  idea  true  and  adequate.  The  only  example 
he  sets  over  against  trifling  propositions  is  this :  "We  can  know 
the  truth,  and  so  may  be  certain  in  propositions,  which  affirm 
something  of  another,  which  is  a  necessary  consequence  of  its 
precise  complex  idea,  but  not  contained  in  it ;  as  that  the  external 
angle  of  all  triangles  are  bigger  than  either  of  the  opposite  in- 
ternal angles ;  which  relation  of  the  outward  angle  to  either  of  the 
opposite  internal  angles  making  no  part  of  the  complex  idea  sig- 
nified by  the  name  triangle,  this  is  a  real  truth,  and  conveys  with 
it  instructive  real  knowledge."!  It  would  seem  that  the  criterion 
of  coherence  made  use  of  here,  would  not  be  inoperative  in  other 
complex  ideas.  Sense  illusion  shows  that  the  mere  presence  of  a 
constellation  of  simple  ideas  does  not  make  this  constellation  true 
or  adequate. 

Locke  holds  in  accordance  with  his  nominalism,  that  what  usu- 
ally passes  for  the  essence  of  anything,  as  man  or  gold,  is  an 
abstraction  and  has  no  counter-part  in  reality.  As  a  matter  of 
convenience  the  mind  binds  things  into  bundles  and  ranks  them 
into  sorts, J  and  annexes  names  to  them.  This  abstraction 

•II.  xxxi.  3. 

trv.  viii.  s. 

III.  zzzlt  8. 


80  A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


he  calls  the  nominal  essence.  It  is  artificial  and  has  no 
real  existence.  That  is,  there  is  no  essence  man,  or  gold. 
But  on  the  other  hand,  the  real  constitution  of  things,  the  "being 
of  anything,  whereby  it  is  what  it  is,"  that  on  which  qualities 
depend,*  is,  as  he  says,  not  without  reason  held  to  be  wholly  un- 
known. "And  thus  the  greatest  part,  if  not  all  our  ideas  of  sub- 
stances, are  false."t  "Our  complex  ideas  of  substances  being  re- 
ferred to  patterns  in  things  themselves,  may  be  false.  That  they 
are  all  false,  when  looked  upon  as  the  representations  of  the  un- 
known essences  of  things,  is  so  evident,  that  there  needs  nothing 
to  be  said  of  it.  I  shall  therefore  pass  over  that  chimerical  sup- 
position, ***"f  f  All  we  have  left  then  for  propositions  to  conform 
to  are  qualities.  But  we  arrive  at  qualities  only  by  inference. 
Ideas  must  have  a  cause,  we  say,  therefore  there  is  a  cause  ade- 
quate to  this  result.  But  we  can  not  test  the  truth  of  propositions 
by  saying  that  ideas  correspond  to  the  real  qualities.  By  our  in- 
ference they  must  correspond.  Qualities  are  the  conclusion  not 
the  premises.  By  such  a  procedure  there  could  be  no  such  thing 
as  illusion  or  error.  But  only  simple  ideas,  by  the  above  infer- 
ence, can  be  said  to  be  adequate.  A  proposition  is  a  complex  idea. 
Hence  we  are  cut  off  even  from  inferential  connection  with  the 
conjunction  or  disjunction  of  qualities.  Moreover,  according  to 
Locke's  theory  of  pleasure  and  pain,  not  only  may  the  same  causes 
produce  ideas  of  either,  but  also  diverse  causes  may  produce  the 
same  ideas  of  either.  The  argument  from  adequate  causation 
thus  falls  to  pieces,  and  we  are  left  with  ideas. 

Let  us  now  take  up  an  example  of  a  true  proposition,  and  see 
just  what  makes  it  true.  This  proposition  must  be  one  of  those 
that  increases  our  knowledge.  Locke's  so-called  trifling  proposi- 
tions of  identity,  as  "substance  is  substance,"  of  predicating  a 
part  of  the  whole,  as  "lead  is  a  metal,"  of  affirming  part  of  the 
definition  of  the  term  defined,  as  "gold  is  yellow,"  are  very  certain, 
but  they  concern  only  the  signification  of  words  and  are  not  in- 
structive, hence  we  can  not  use  them.  Also  our  example  can  not 
be  expressed  in  general  or  abstract  terms.  We  must  affirm  or 

•III.  ill.  15. 

til.   xxxii.   5.  —- 

fll.  xxxil.  18. 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  81 


deny  something  of  a  "this,"  since  there  are  only  particular  exist- 
ences. To  say  that  gold  is  hard,  malleable,  heavy,  yellow,  soluble 
in  aqua  regia,  etc.,  is  not  going  outside  the  definition  of  gold  and  is 
not  instructive,  according  to  Locke.  Let  us  take  a  common  fact 
of  astronomy :  "The  sun  is  93,000,000  miles  from  an  observer  on 
the  earth."  That  seems  to  satisfy  Locke's  demands.  It  is  par- 
ticular; the  predication  is  not  contained  in  the  subject;  it  is  not 
verbal.  It  is  based  upon  careful  observation  "and  calculation.  We 
are  instructed  by  it. 

The  terms  of  this  proposition  are  all  within  the  realm  of  ideas. 
The  sun  we  are  talking  about  is  this  particular  bright  disk  mov- 
ing across  the  sky,  which,  if  we  were  closer  and  could  exist  as 
observers,  we  should  see  to  be  a  huge  flaming  gaseous  sphere. 
That  we  do  not  see  it  as  a  huge  flaming  sphere  does  not  put  it  as 
such  outside  the  world  of  ideas.  The  bluish  gray  mass  yonder  on 
the  sky-line  is  a  clump  of  trees.  The  so-called  real  appearance  of 
the  trees  is  that  appearance  in  a  certain  class  of  appearances 
which  I  judge  from  practical  or  scientific  reasons  to  be  typical. 
The  real  tree  of  common-sense  and  science,  is,  in  the  terminology 
of  Locke,  a  particular  group  of  ideas,  out  of  a  class  of  such  ideas, 
judged  to  be  primary  and  typical  for  a  certain  purpose.  If  this 
purpose  is  to  regard  the  cellular  structure  of  the  tree,  then  the 
"i*eal"  tree  is  that  group  or  correlation  of  groups  of  ideas  we  get 
by  looking  though  a  microscope.  If  it  is  the  molecular  or  atomic 
structure  we  are  after,  we  regard  those  groups  of  ideas  real  which 
we  get  by  looking  through  the  imagination.  We  should  see  the 
atoms  like  so  many  pollen  grains  if  our  eyes  were  only  sharp 
enough.  So  the  real  sun  for  science  is  that  group  of  ideas  we 
should  get  if  we  were  in  such  a  position  as  the  purposes  of  astron- 
omy demand.  We  supply  the  deficiency  by  imagining  how  it  would 
look  under  certain  conditions  of  observation,  and  describe  it  in 
accordance  with  this.  After  this  fashion,  the  selenographer  may 
draw  us  a  picture  of  a  lunar  landscape,  or  the  geologist  a  restora- 
tion of  prehistoric  monsters,  or  the  historian  "a  morning's  walk 


82  A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


in  Rome  under  the  reign  of  Commodus."  Most  of  our  realities  are 
"restorations,"  ideal  constructions;  but  which  are  nevertheless 
part  of  and  continuous  with  "ideas" ;  soul  of  their  soul  and  flesh 
of  their  flesh.  This  then  is  what  we  mean  by  the  sun :  an  idea,  in 
the  mind,  in  Locke's  sense. 

Likewise  the  observer  and  the  earth  are  ideas.  The  term, 
93,000,000  miles  must  be  considered  as  a  sign  of  ideas  we  can 
never  get  at  once.  Our  best  way  of  comprehending  this  distance 
is  by  illustrations.  A  cannon  shot,  with  the  velocity  of  2,500  feet 
per  second,  would  require  over  six  years  to  reach  the  sun.  A 
railroad  train  with  a  speed  of  60  miles  an  hour  would  require,  it 
is  said,  175  years.  If  we  represent  the  sun  by  a  globe  two  feet 
in  diameter,  the  earth  on  the  same  scale  would  be  the  size  of  a 
very  small  pea,  at  a  distance  of  two  hundred  and  twenty  feet. 
Feet,  miles,  railroad  trains,  and  projectiles,  are  in  Locke's  realm 
of  ideas.  There  is  plenty  of  good  every  day  space  there.  The 
world  of  the  scientist  is  an  interpretation  and  extension  and  com- 
pletion of  ordinary  experience.  The  world  of  science  is  no  un- 
knowable mysterious  substratum,  as  Locke  at  times  would  have 
us  think.  It  is  a  perfectly  good,  sensible  world,  one  that  we  can 
see,  and  feel,  and  hear.  What  we  soon  find  out  is  that  this 
world  which  is  of  one  piece  with  experience  can  not  be  had  all 
at  once  and  some  of  it  cannot  be  had  at  all  but  can  only  be  "re- 
stored" by  rigid  proof.  That  the  sun  is  93,000,000  miles  away  is 
one  of  those  propositions  that  requires  proof.  There  are  various 
methods,  as  calculations  based  on  observations  of  the  transit  of 
Venus ;  as  the  velocity  or  aberration  of  light,  motion  of  the  moon, 
etc.  What  these  proofs  do  is  to  construct  that  which  can  be  ex- 
perienced only  in  the  imagination,  and  show  how  it  is  connected 
and  indissolubly  bound  up  with  that  which  is  experienced.  With- 
out thus  being  concreted  with  experience  they  have  no  meaning. 
All  these  proofs  are  demonstrations  that  our  world  is  harmoni- 
ously extended  beyond  experience,  that  the  world  is  a  consistent 
whole.  The  proposition  about  the  distance  of  the  sun  is  true 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  83 


because  it  is  in  harmony  with  such  other  propositions  as  "this 
stick  is  three  feet  long."  Thus,  complicated  scientific  propositions 
are  true  because  they  are  consistent  with  or  in  harmony  with  other 
propositions.  These  other  propositions  which  are  called  facts, 
are  true  because  they  represent  or  agree  with  certain  "ideas/' 
For  example,  the  proposition  "this  stick  is  thirty-six  inches  long," 
is  true  because  of  a  certain  complex  idea,  yard  stick.  The  actual 
criterion  of  truth  is  both  agreement  and  consistency.  But  the 
agreement  is  not  between  propositions  and  unknowable  reality, 
but  between  propositions  and  experience.  Thus  true  propositions 
must  have  empirical  consistency.  Since  propositions  are  ideas,  it 
is  seen  that  the  truth  of  a  proposition  depends  upon  something 
in  the  mind,  in  Locke's  sense. 

Locke  has  a  great  deal  to  say  about  patterns  and  archetypes, 
and  that  propositions  are  true  if  they  conform  to  them  and  false 
if  they  do  not.*  But  what  is  an  archetype?  Our  idea  of  a  horse 
if  its  existence  is  affirmed,  is  true  because  there  is  such  an  animal, 
but  our  idea  of  a  centaur  is  false  because  there  is  no  such  animal 
in  nature.  This  is  Locke's  argument.  But  existing  in  nature 
means  just  those  complex  ideas  from  sensation.  There  are  no 
such  complex  ideas  as  centaurs.  But  in  all  this  we  do  not  have  to 
go  beyond  the  realm  of  ideas.  Locke's  fundamental  assumption 
of  "ideas"  does  not  demand  it.  Then  there  is  an  uncertainty  about 
what  he  means  by  knoweledge.  Sometimes  he  says  knowledge  is 
the  agreement  or  disagreement  of  ideas.  This  would  seem  to 
leave  out  any  extramental  comparison.  It  would  be  in  vain,  how- 
ever, to  try  to  get  a  coherent  theory  of  knowledge  and  truth  from 
Locke.  His  confusion  of  idea  and  quality  is  marked  in  these  in- 
stances. After  laying  all  the  corner  stones  of  the  above  coherence 
theory  of  truth,  and  which  he. can  not  escape  from,  he  quietly  in- 
serts quality  for  idea  and  then  begins  to  talk  about  conformity  t< 
archetypes.  But  Locke  can  not  talk  about  any  sun  that  does  not 
belong  to  the  realm  of  ideas.  When  he  thinks  he  is,  we  might 
train  some  of  his  own  guns  upon  him.  In  criticising  Male- 
branche's  hypothesis  of  "Seeing  things  in  God,"  he  asks,  "how  can 

•II.  xxxii.  26. 


84  A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


he  know  that  there  is  any  such  real  being  in  the  world  as  the  sun? 
Did  he  ever  see  the  sun  ?  No ;  but  on  occasion  of  the  presence  of 
the  sun  to  his  eyes,  he  has  seen  the  idea  of  sun  in  God,  which 
God  has  exhibited  to  him ;  but  the  sun,  because  it  can  not  be  united 
to  his  soul,  he  can  not  see.  How  does  he  know  that  there  is  a  sun, 
a  sun  which  he  never  saw?  And  since  God  does  all  things  by  the 
most  compendious  ways,  what  need  is  there  that  God  should  make 
a  sun  that  we  might  see  its  idea  in  him  when  he  pleased  to  exhibit 
it,  when  this  might  as  well  be  done  without  any  real  sun  at  all/'* 
So  far  as  the  divine  economy  is  concerned  it  is  just  as  useless  for 
God  to  make  a  real  sun  and  have  to  annex  ideas  to  certain  of  its 
motions  as  to  occasion  ideas  when  these  certain  motions  obtain. 
The  only  difference  seems  to  be  that  in  the  one  case  ideas  are  con- 
nected with  certain  motions  as  permanent  appendages  annexed 
once  and  for  all,  while  in  the  other  case  God  has  to  keep  busy  con- 
necting the  appropriate  ideas  to  their  causes.  If  Malebranche  sees 
the  sun  in  God,  Locke  sees  the  sun  in  his  own  mind.  If  Male- 
branche never  sees  the  real  sun,  neither  does  Locke:  if  the  one 
does  not  know  of  its  existence,  neither  does  the  other.  But  Locke's 
criticism  is  perfectly  just,  applied  either  to  Malebranche  or  to 
himself;  and  it  removes  the  least  ground  for  an  agreement  cri- 
terion of  truth  in  the  sense  that  a  true  proposition  agrees  with  or 
conforms  to  some  pattern  or  archetype  not  an  idea  and  external  to 
the  mind. 

37.  IDEAS  ARE  MARKS  OF  SOMETHING  OTHER.  Although  Locke 
holds  that  there  are  simple  ideas,  yet  he  maintains  just  as  vigor- 
ously that  ideas  either  simple  or  complex,  are  marks  or  signs  of 
something  other  than  themselves.  But  an  idea  can  not  be  simple 
and  significant  at  the  same  time.  If  it  is  a  sign,  besides  being 
what  it  is,  it  must  have  some  other  idea  annexed  to  it,  by  which  it 
points  to  or  indicates  that  of  which  it  is  said  to  be  the  sign.  Here 
we  come  to  the  essential  inconsistency  of  Locke's  system.  His 
system  consists  of  two  quests :  the  genesis  of  knowledge  and  the 
validity  of  knowledge.  In  the  first  place,  in  the  case  of  material 

*(Exam.   P.   M.'s  Opin.   20.) 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OP  KNOWLEDGE  85 


bodies,  Locke  makes  his  hypothesis  of  an  external  world  of  incog- 
nitive  substances  that  have  certain  primary  qualities,  which  cause 
ideas  in  the  mind.    This  hypothesis  is  verified  if  it  can  explain  the 
facts  of  experience  better  than  any  other.    Locke  believes  that  it 
does.    But  the  central  thing  in  the  origin  of  knowledge  is  the  sim- 
ple idea.    All  knowledge  is  composed  of  simple  unanalyzable  ob- 
jects.   But  these  are  effects  in  the  mind.    These  ideas  are  simple 
because  as  effects  they  are  simple.    Being  simple  they  are  neces- 
sarily independent.    The  simple  idea  of  whiteness,  although  con- 
nected or  associated  with  the  idea  of  coldness,  in  the  case  of  a 
snowball,  is  nevertheless  independent  and  distinct.    This  follows 
from  the  hypothesis ;  for  whiteness  is  produced  by  an  entirely  dis- 
tinct and  independent  cause,  viz.,  a  peculiar  conformation  of  snow 
crystals  which  reflect  white  producing  corpuscles,  which  in  turn 
affect  only  the  eye.     By  no  other  channel  can  whiteness  be  pro- 
duced, and  just  this  peculiar  chain  of  causes  and  no  other  produces 
the  idea  of  whiteness.    Even  in  this,  however,  Locke  is  not  con- 
sistent; because  the  ideas  of  pleasure  and  pain  and  the  primary 
ideas  are  produced  by  no  independent  channel,  and  no  simple  sec- 
ondary idea  can  free  itself  from  them.    But  we  must  ignore  this, 
as  Locke  does,  in  treating  the  origin  of  knowledge.    Just  as  two 
or  more  telegraphic  messages  may  be  sent  over  the  same  wire  at 
the  same  time,  so  we  may  suppose  that  in  some  way,  physically 
possible,  the  proximate  causes  of  simple  ideas  are  independent, 
notwithstanding  they  come  in  by  the  same  route.    The  simple  idea 
is  .necessary,  not  only  to  Locke's  doctrine  of  the  association  and 
compounding  of  ideas,  but  also  to  the  distinction  between  primary 
and  secondary  qualities.    If  the  idea  of  extension  be  not  simple 
and  independent,  then  Locke  could  never  separate  it  from  the 
secondary  ideas  in  order  to  show  the  more  permanent  and  impor- 
tant nature  of  its  cause.     But  without  this  distinction,  Locke's 
hypothetical  real  material  world  would  have  to  be  revised.     A 
simple  idea,  according  to  Locke,  is  a  simple  effect  in  the  mind 
which  can  not  be  analyzed  into  parts,  and  his  material  world  is  in- 


86  A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


vented  for  the  express  purpose  of  supplying  these  simple  effects. 

In  this  connection,  the  reason  why  there  is  an  external  material 
world  is  the  mind's  innate  repugnancy  to  the  affirmation  of  un- 
caused ideas.  The  mind  is  here  like  a  cashier  in  a  large  depart- 
ment store  which  is  fitted  with  a  system  of  pneumatic  tubes 
through  which  money  to  and  from  every  part  of  the  store  is  sent 
from  and  to  him.  Shut  up  in  his  office,  he  can  be  imagined  to 
reason  thus :  "Here  are  certain  coins  and  bills.  Sometimes  they 
come  singly  and  sometimes  together,  but  in  all  cases,  I  can  distin- 
guish certain  definite  unanalyzable  units.  I  do  not  make  this 
money ;  but  it  is  here,  and  I  can  not  suppose  that  it  has  not  been 
made,  therefore,  it  has  been  made  somewhere  and  sent  in  through 
these  tubes  to  me.  All  I  can  do  is  to  arrange  or  classify  it  or  send 
it  out  again.  Of  the  real  constitution  and  essence  of  this  external 
realm  I  am  incurably  ignorant.  But  that  there  is  such  a  realm  I 
am  certain.  I  am  therefore  justified  in  making  an  hypothesis 
about  this  external  realm.  But  my  hypothesis  must  explain  the 
presence  of  these  simple  objects  here.  If  my  hypothesis  on  the 
other  hand,  based  on  the  assumption  that  there  is  a  real  external 
realm,  forces  me  to  the  conclusion  that  these  objects  I  get  are  not 
simple  and  unanalyzable,  I  have  then  to  choose  between  what  I 
have  supposed  my  innate  repugnancy  forces  me  to  presume,  i.  e., 
an  external  realm  of  causes,  and  what  I  intuitively  perceive,  i.  e., 
these  simple  unanalyzable  objects.  But  if  my  hypothesis  forces  me 
to  deny  my  intuitive  knowledge,  it  is  evidently  unreliable." 

When  Locke  comes  to  consider  ideas  from  the  side  of  the 
validity  of  knowledge,  his  hypothesis  of  an  external  material 
world  does  force  the  conclusion  that  ideas  are  never  simple.  This 
conclusion  is  patent  but  not  acknowledged  by  Locke. 

In  explaining  what  he  means  by  clear  and  obscure  ideas,  he 
says,  "The  perception  of  the  mind  being  most  aptly  explained  by 
words  relating  to  sight,  we  shall  best  understand  what  is  meant 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OP  KNOWLEDGE  87 


by  clear  and  obscure  in  our  ideas  by  reflecting  on  what  discovers 
to  us  visible  objects,  we  give  the  name  obscure  to  that  which  is  not 
placed  in  a  light  sufficient  to  discover  minutely  to  us  the  figure 
and  colors  which  are  observable  in  it,  and  which  in  a  better  light, 
would  be  discernable.  In  like  manner  our  simple  ideas  are  clear 
when  they  are  such  as  the  objects  themselves,  from  whence  they 
are  taken,  did  or  might,  in  a  well-ordered  sensation  or  perception, 
present  them."*  This,  of  course,  is  confused.  What  he  is  really 
talking  about  is  ideas  of  ideas.  I  have  the  idea  of  a  tree,  i.  e.,  I 
perceive  a  tree.  When  I  no  longer  see  the  tree,  I  may  remember  it 
and  make  propositions  about  it.  The  idea  I  have  of  the  tree  when 
I  no  longer  see  it,  may  be  clear  or  confused.  "Whilst  the  memory 
retains  them  thus,  and  can  produce  them  to  the  mind,  whenever  it 
has  occasion  to  consider  them,  they  are  clear  ideas."f  But  these 
ideas,  which  can  be  said  to  have  meanings,  are  manifestly,  not 
simple  ideas  from  sensation,  yet  he  treats  them  as  if  they  were, 
and  gives  simple  ideas  from  sensation  the  character  of  significance 
which  belongs  properly  to  remembered  ideas.  The  cause  of  this 
confusion  is  the  old  story  of  identifying  idea  with  quality.  Locke 
probably  thinks  he  is  treating  simple  ideas  as  clear  and  obscure, 
and  hence,  as  signs.  "The  causes  of  obscurity  in  simple  ideas," 
he  explains,  "seem  to  be  either  dull  organs,  or  very  slight  or  tran- 
sient impressions  made  by  the  objects,  or  else  a  weakness  in  the 
memory  not  able  to  retain  them  as  received."}  But  the  last  cause 
clearly  can  not  be  admitted,  for  memory  is  the  "power  in  many 
cases  to  revive  perceptions  which  it  [the  mind]  once  had,  with 
this  additional  perception  annexed  to  them,  that  it  has  had  them 
before."§  Remembered  ideas  are  necessarily  complex,  so  the 
causes  of  obscurity  in  simple  ideas  are  dull  organs  and  slight  im- 
pressions. He  also  says,  "As  a  clear  idea  is  that  whereof  the  mind 
has  such  a  full  and  evident  perception,  as  it  does  receive  from 
an  outward  object  operating  duly  on  a  well-disposed  organ;  so  a 
distinct  idea  is  that  wherein  the  mind  perceives  a  difference  from 
all  other;  and  a  confused  idea  is  such  a  one  as  is  not  sufficiently 


88  A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


distinguishable  from  another,  from  which  it  ought  to  be  differ- 
ent."* These  remarks  might  apply  to  a  remembered  idea  but  not 
to  a  simple  idea,  for  an  idea  caused  by  an  external  impression  is 
just  what  it  is  whether  the  organ  be  well-disposed  or  ill-disposed. 

Ideas  are  also  either  real  or  fantastical,  adequate  or  inadequate, 
true  or  false.  Let  us  take  the  first  as  typical.  He  means  such 
ideas  "as  have  a  foundation  in  nature ;  such  as  have  a  conformity 
with  the  real  being  and  existence  of  things,  or  with  their  arche- 
types. Fantastical  or  chimerical  I  call  such  as  have  no  foundation 
in  nature,  nor  have  any  conformity  to  that  reality  of  being  to 
which  they  are  tacitly  referred  as  to  their  archetypes."**  The 
agreement  criterion  is  now  working  smoothly.  All  simple  ideas 
are  real,  he  says,  not  that  they  are  all  exact  images  of  what  really 
exists,  but  that  they  are  the  "constant"  effects  in  us  of  things 
themselves,  ordained  by  our  Maker  to  be  such  as  they  are:  "the 
reality  lying  in  that  steady  correspondence  they  have  with  the 
distinct  constitutions  of  real  beings."J  Simple  ideas  are  "as- 
signed to  be  the  marks  whereby  we  are  to  know  and  distinguish 
things  which  we  have  to  do  with."§  How  we  can  have  a  confused 
simple  idea  which  is  at  the  same  time  real  is  not  clear. 

If  we  stop  to  consider  what  these  archetypes  or  patterns  are,  to 
which  Locke  refers,  it  is  evident  that  they  can  not  be  the  real 
essence  of  things.  It  would  be  absurd  to  say  that  we  ever  know 
that  ideas  correspond  to  that  of  which  we  are  incurably  ignorant. 
But  when  we  consider  the  facts  of  sense  illusion,  it  appears  that 
we  get  simple  ideas  which  have  no  essential  archetypes.  In  cer- 
tain pathological  states  everything  is  doubled,  or  of  a  character- 
istic color.  "Though  a  man  in  a  fever  should  from  sugar  have  a 
bitter  taste,  which  at  another  time  would  produce  a  sweet  one, 
yet  the  idea  of  bitter  in  that  man's  mind  would  be  as  clear  and 
as  distinct  from  the  idea  of  sweet  as  if  he  had  tasted  only  gall. 
Nor  does  it  make  any  more  confusion  between  the  two  ideas  of 

•II.  xxix.  4.  ill.  xxx.  2. 

**n.  xxx.   1.  §(Ibi(L) 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  89 


sweet  and  bitter,  that  the  same  sort  of  body  produces  at  one  time 
one,  and  at  another  time  another  idea  by  the  taste,  than  that  it 
makes  a  confusion  in  two  ideas  of  white  and  sweet,  or  white  and 
round,  that  the  same  piece  of  sugar  produces  them  both  in  the 
mind  at  the  same  time."*  Locke  would  say,  probably,  that  in 
these  cases  the  sense  organ  is  deranged  so  that  the  motion  it  sets 
up  in  the  animal  spirits  corresponds  not  to  the  actual  external 
impression  but  to  another  impression  which  under  normal  condi- 
tions would  give  this  motion.  He  can  not  avoid  asserting  that, 
if  everything  appears  yellow  to  a  man  with  jaundice,  the  yellow  is 
a  true,  adequate,  and  right,  simple  idea.  If  this  be  his  conclusion, 
and  he  has  made  no  reservations,  the  archetypes  or  patterns  of 
which  ideas  are  marks  or  signs  are  the  last  motions  in  the  animal 
spirits  or  brain  that  occur  just  before  the  idea  arises  in  the  mind.f 
The  chain  of  motions  from  the  external  real  thing  are  beset  with 
so  many  hazards  and  modifications,  that  the  only  thing,  which 
God  has  ordained  to  produce  such  and  such  ideas,  is  the  last  link 
in  this  chain.  After  the  manner  of  Locke  on  Malebranche,  ir?  the 
words  of  Berkley,  we  might  venture  to  ask  how  he  knows  that  the 
whole  choir  of  Heaven  and  furniture  of  the  earth  is  not  a  mere 
ferment  in  his  skull  established  and  ordained  by  God.  But  since 
his  skull  is  a  part  of  the  furniture  of  the  earth,  where  is  the  final 
motion  to  take  place  ?  Or,  on  the  other  hand,  if  the  archetypes  of 
which  simple  ideas  are  marks  or  signs,  are  the  primary  qualities 
of  things,  and  we  know  when  an  idea  is  true  and  right  and  ade- 
quate, as  "sensible  matter  of  fact/'  then  the  whole  apparatus  of 
ideas,  sense  organs,  nerves,  animal  spirits,  the  dark  cabinet  and 
all  the  rest,  appear  to  be  altogether  useless.  If  I  know  things  as 
they  are,  what  is  the  use  of  signs  or  marks  ? 

Passing  over  these  objections,  it  is  certain  that  Locke  holds  that 
simple  ideas  are  the  representations  or  appearances  as  marks  or 
signs  of  something  other  than  themselves.  Every  simple  idea, 
even  the  very  first  one,  must  be  something  like  this :  "I  am  what 

*II.  xi.  3. 

t(Exam.  of  P.  M.'a  Opin.  10.) 


90  A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


I  am,  and  I  am  also  the  sign  of  some  real  existence  other  than 
what  I  am." 

To  take  up  the  idea  of  the  cashier,  supposing  him  to  believe  in 
a  hard  money  basis,  and  supposing  only  paper  money  comes  to 
him  through  the  pneumatic  tubes,  we  can  imagine  him  reasoning 
thus :  "Here  are  various  bills  which  are  the  signs  of  real  money 
which  has  actual  existence  in  the  external  world.  To  be  sure  these 
green-backs  do  not  say  that  there  is  gold  or  silver  deposited  in  the 
treasury  to  redeem  them,  but  I  know  from  my  science  of  political 
economy  that  the  real  basis  for  them  is  actual  gold  and  silver. 
Green-backs  are  only  secondary  money  and  represent  no  real  ex- 
istence in  the  external  world.  They  are  simply  the  secondary 
effects  of  real  money.  On  the  other  hand,  these  gold  or 
silver  certificates  are  primary  effects  of  real  money.  Real  money 
exists  out  there  whether  I  have  any  certificates  of  it  or  not.  But 
I  am  now  confronted  with  a  peculiar  problem  in  the  case  of  coun- 
terfeit money.  There  are  true  green-backs  and  counterfeit 
green-backs,  true  gold  and  silver  certificates  and  counterfeit 
certificates;  but  how  am  I  to  tell  the  true  from  the  false? 
Theoretically  I  know  that  the  true  bills  correspond  to  some  real 
existence  other  than  themselves  of  which  the  Government  in  its 
wisdom  has  ordained  they  shall  be  the  marks  or  signs.  But  the 
counterfeit  bills  come  in  through  the  tubes  just  as  the  real  ones 
do,  and  since  I  do  not  make  them,  I  am  compelled,  by  a  certain 
repugnancy  of  my  mind  to  assert  that  they  correspond  to  some 
real  existence,  and  consequently  are  true  bills.  All  simple  bill? 
are  true,  adequate,  and  right.  The  Government  that  has  estab- 
lished and  regulates  this  pneumatic  system  and  the  financial  world 
beyond  has  ordained  that  just  these  bills  and  no  others  shall  come 
to  me ;  otherwise  I  should  not  have  them.  Falsity  comes  in  when 
I  classify  them  with  bills  which  are  not  what  they  claim  on  their 
face  to  be.  But  this  does  not  seem  to  help  me.  How  can  I  know 
that  a  bill  is  not  what  it  claims  to  be  ?  Since  I  can  not  get  out  into 
the  external  world,  whatever  I  do  must  be  done  here  in  my  office. 
I  must  seek  for  principles  and  uniformities  among  these  bills.  I 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OP  KNOWLEDGE  91 


must  discover  a  system  of  classification.  When  I  have  done  this, 
I  shall  judge  those  bills  counterfeits  which,  classified  as  what  they 
claim  to  be,  do  not  harmonize  with  this  system.  My  hypothesis  of 
an  external  world  is  thus  entirely  useless  to  me.  Perhaps  I  have 
been  wrong  in  supposing  there  is  an  external  world  and  a  pneu- 
matic system.  Instead  of  being  enclosed  in  a  small  office,  I  may  be 
in  a  large  room,  running  across  these  bills  here  and  there.  Per- 
haps this  big  room,  with  bills  floating  about,  is  one  complete 
system,  and  that  my  repugnancy  to  uncaused  bills  is  just  my  in- 
nate desire  to  discover  this  system.  I  can  never  discover  the 
absolute  truth  of  this  system  until  I  get  all  of  it."  This  is  just  the 
case  with  Locke's  "ideas."  If  they  are  signs  of  an  external  reality 
we  have  no  way  of  determining  their  truth  or  falsity.  The 
assumption  of  an  external  world  is  of  no  use  to  us.  We  are  com- 
pelled to  adopt  the  theory  of  the  organic  unity  of  experience. 

38.  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  Two  WORLDS.  Notwithstanding  that  the 
body  with  its  so-called  sense  organs,  nerves,  and  brain  is  a  part 
of  the  internal  material,  the  world  of  ideas,  it  is  altogether  prob- 
able that  Locke  assumes  their  real  external  existence,  in  his  sense, 
from  the  very  first.  Supposing  this  is  true,  it  is  easy  to  see  why 
he  clings  so  tenaciously  to  his  unperceived  external  world.  He 
probably  began  as  a  common-sense  observer  noting  the  concom- 
itant variations  between  the  condition  of  his  eyes,  ears,  and  skin, 
and  the  presence,  condition,  or  absence  of  the  objects  in  his  expe- 
rience. One  does  not  perceive  real  bodies  immediately,  Locke 
probably  reasoned,  but  by  means  of  the  sense  organs,  nerves,  and 
brain.  Thus  there  exists  between  the  perceiving  mind  and  the 
real  objects  these  organic  structures.  What  takes  place  in  them, 
when  we  perceive  objects,  is  motions  of  one  sort  or  another.  It 
is  obvious  that  these  motions  are  not  like  the  objects  we  perceive. 
Therefore,  these  motions,  or  rather,  the  last  motion  that  occurs 
in  the  brain,  is  the  cause  of  our  perceiving  an  object;  and  more- 
over the  object  we  perceive  can  not  be  the  real  object  but  a  repre- 
sentation which  is  the  sign  of  the  real  object.  All  the  objects  we 


92  A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


perceive  are  in  the  mind.  All  this  is  clear  and  obvious ;  for  does 
not  anatomy  and  physiology  show  that  the  eye  is  adapted  for  the 
receiving  and  transmitting  just  those  motions  of  the  light  cor- 
puscles, and  is  not  the  ear  adapted  for  receiving  and  transmitting 
motions  of  the  air?  When  our  eyes  are  afflicted  with  cataracts 
or  when  our  ears  have  no  drums,  is  it  not  a  fact  we  see  or  hear 
imperfectly  or  not  at  all?  "It  is  plain  those  perceptions  are  pro- 
duced in  us  by  exterior  causes  affecting  our  senses :  because  those 
that  want  the  organs  of  any  sense  never  can  have  the  ideas  belong- 
ing to  that  sense  produced  in  their  minds.  This  is  too  evident  to 
be  doubted:  and  therefore  we  can  not  but  be  assured  that  they 
come  by  the  organs  of  that  sense,  and  no  other  way.  The  organs 
themselves,  it  is  plain,  do  not  produce  them ;  for  then  the  eyes  of 
a  man  in  the  dark  would  produce  colors,  and  his  nose  smell  roses  in 
the  winter :  but  we  see  nobody  gets  the  relish  of  a  pineapple  till  he 
goes  to  the  Indies,  where  it  is,  and  tastes  it."*  It  thus  seems 
certain  to  Locke  that  we  perceive  only  the  effects  of  the  motions 
in  our  minds.  It  is  probable  therefore  that  his  doctrine  of  ideas 
was  subsequent  to  and  adopted  to  harmonize  with  his  adopted 
theory  of  the  sense  organs  and  nervous  system.  The  genetic  order 
of  his  reasoning  begins  with  an  external  world,  proceeds  to  the 
sense  organs,  nerves,  and  brain,  and  culminates  in  his  doctrine 
of  ideas.  Having  shut  himself  in  a  dark  cabinet,  he  is  able  to  show 
the  validity  of  his  knowledge  only  by  a  tour  de  force.  This  he  does 
by  a  direct  appeal  to  common-sense.  But  the  external  world  he 
adopts  is  not  the  external  world  of  common-sense,  and  this  appeal 
gives  him  no  support. 

This  doctrine  of  two  worlds,  the  world  of  ideas  which  includes 
all  that  we  experience,  and  the  world  of  real  things  which  we  do 
not  experience  but  which  is  the  cause  of  what  we  do  experience,  is 
devised  to  explain  the  correspondence  between  the  structure  and 
condition  of  the  body  and  its  organs  and  the  perception  or  the 
having  of  objects.  The  doctrine  of  two  worlds  is  involved  not 
only  in  interactionalism  but  also  in  parallelism  and  epiphenomin- 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  93 


alism.  The  peculiar  thing  about  this  doctrine  is,  that  the  propo- 
sition that  there  are  two  worlds,  is  involved  both  in  the  premises 
and  in  the  conclusion.  We  begin  by  affirming  that  whatever  is 
perceived  by  means  of  a  medium  either  as  a  cause  or  parallel  con- 
dition is  only  an  effect  or  an  accompanying  occurrence  of  some 
cause  or  other  occurrence.  The  body  is  seen  to  be  the  proximate 
cause  or  parallel  condition  of  our  perceiving  objects.  Therefore, 
what  we  perceive  is  not  a  real  object  but  only  an  effect  or  parallel 
occurrence.  In  other  words,  I  perceive  immediately  an  external 
world  of  uniformity  and  law.  I  also  perceive  immediately  that 
this  world  of  uniformity  and  law  is  perceived  by  me  only  on  the 
condition  and  hazard  of  one  part  of  it,  my  body.  Therefore,  what 
is  perceived  immediately  is  not  perceived  immediately.  I  perceive 
my  body  to  be  the  condition  or  cause  of  my  having  or  perceiving 
objects,  yet  as  a  part  of  the  external  real  world  I  do  not  and  can 
not  perceive  it  at  all. 

This  correspondence  between  "body  and  mind"  takes  place  in 
our  one  world  of  experience.  Why  we  should  not  be  like  pure 
spirits  is  indeed  a  mystery.  But  it  is  a  mystery  in  our  one  world 
of  experience.  But  the  doctrine  of  two  worlds  does  not  dispel  this 
mystery.  Interactionism,  parallelism,  or  epiphenominalism,  are 
just  as  incomprehensible  and  mysterious  as  that  which  they  at- 
tempt to  explain.  It  must  be  admitted  that  parallelism,  if  it  is 
given,  not  as  an  explanation  but  as  an  attempt  to  state  the  facts 
of  this  mystery,  is  much  to  be  preferred,  i.  e.,  a  parallelism  in 
one  world  of  experience.  But  besides  being  as  mysterious  and  in- 
comprehensible  as  that  which  it  attempts  to  explain,  the  doctrine 
of  two  worlds,  like  Royce's  self-representative  series,  multiplies 
the  mystery  indefinitely.  The  same  mysterious  correspondence 
breaks  put  in  this  world  of  ideas.  Here  is  the  idea  of  my  body 
with  its  eyes  and  ears,  and  skin  and  nose  and  palate:  all  ideas. 
Here  is  the  idea  of  the  external  object,  the  vibrating  air  and 
Newtonian  corpuscles :  all  ideas.  When  the  idea  of  the  eye  shuts, 


94  A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


the  ideas  of  external  objects  no  longer  appear.  When  the  idea  of 
the  eye  has  the  idea  of  cataract  in  it,  ideas  of  visible  objects 
appear  imperfectly  or  not  at  all.  Thus  we  have  a  full  set  of 
grounds  for  splitting  up  the  world  of  ideas  into  external  and  in- 
ternal realm.  This  internal  world  can  likewise  be  dichotomised, 
and  so  on  indefinitely. 

Locke  has  shown  us  how  diseased  and  imperfect  organs  of  sense 
interfere  with  external  sense  perception.  We  have  supposed  that 
the  correspondence  between  the  condition  of  the  sense  organs  and 
perceived  objects,  determined  Locke  to  his  doctrine  of  ideas  or  two 
worlds.  Quite  as  strong  a  case  can  be  made  out,  by  the  same 
method,  for  the  dependence  of  ideas  from  reflection  upon  the  con- 
dition of  the  body,  especially  the  brain.  A  blow  on  the  head  puts 
an  end  to  ideas  from  reflection  quite  as  effectually  as  closing  the 
eye  puts  an  end  to  ideas  of  visible  objects.  Locke  himself  fur- 
nishes instances  of  a  man  cured  of  madness  by  a  surgical  opera- 
tion.* The  effects  of  alcohol,  drugs,  coffee,  tea,  and  tobacco,  upon 
ideas  from  reflection  were  well  known  to  Locke.  Just  as  a  similar 
class  of  facts  forces  him  to  attribute  a  mediating  function  to 
the  sense  organs,  nerves  and  brain,  in  respect  of  ideas  from  sen- 
sation, so  this  class  of  facts  must  force  him  to  attribute  a  like 
function  to  some  part  of  the  body,  presumably  the  brain,  in  re- 
spect of  ideas  from  reflection.  Some  certain  parts  of  the  brain, 
and  not  the  mind  itself,  are  the  internal  sense  organs.  Without 
presuming  too  much  upon  modern  physiological  psychology,  it 
seems  certain  that  the  argument  leads  to  some  form  of  localization 
in  the  brain  of  the  proximate  causes  of  all  ideas.  The  mind  con- 
sequently either  does  not  have  active  powers  or  it  is  duplex,  with 
the  brain  as  a  partition.  Locke  can  not  admit  the  former.  The 
perception  of  ideas  from  reflection  is  then  a  sort  of  intellectual 
osmosis.  But  this  is  against  Locke's  concept  of  the  mind  as  a 
unitary  substance.  The  argument  has  thus  brought  Locke  into 
a  veritable  cul  de  sac.  It  plays  havoc  not  only  with  his  conception 
of  the  mind  itself  but  with  the  external  world  as  well.  The  brain, 
being  the  "mind's  presence  room,"  is  the  location  of  the  proximate 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  06 


causes  of  all  ideas.  These  causes  mix  freely  together  in  the  pres- 
ence room.  Not  only  does  the  motion  set  up  by  one  material  body 
get  transformed  into  the  motion  properly  set  up  by  another,  as 
when  sugar  tastes  bitter,  but  also  motions  set  up  by  material 
bodies,  as  alcohol  or  opium,  produce  modifications  among  the 
causes  of  ideas  from  reflection,  and  are  in  no  way  due  to  the  active 
mind  substance.  It  is  now  certain  that  the  mere  claim  of  an  idea 
to  be  the  mark  of  such  and  such  a  thing  can  not  be  taken  at  its 
face  value.  We  can  never  be  certain  an  idea  from  reflection  has 
not  been  set  up  by  some  material  motion,  or  that  an  idea  from 
sensation  is  not  due  to  the  active  powers  of  the  mind. 

39.  REAL  EXISTENCE.  In  the  case  of  his  external  world,  Locke 
puts  forward  what  he  calls  knowledge  of  real  existence.  "It  is 
therefore  the  actual  receiving  of  ideas  from  without,  that  gives 
us  notice  of  the  existence  of  other  things,  and  makes  us  know  that 
something  doth  exist  at  that  time  without  us,  which  causes  that 
idea  in  us,  though  perhaps  we  neither  know  nor  consider  how  it 
does  it :  for  it  takes  not  from  the  certainty  of  our  senses,  and  the 
ideas  we  receive  by  them,  that  we  know  not  the  manner  wherein 
they  are  produced,  v.  g.,  whilst  I  write  this  I  have,  by  the  paper 
affecting  my  eyes,  that  idea  produced  in  my  mind  which,  what- 
ever object  causes,  I  call  white;  by  which  I  know  that  that  quality 
or  accident  (i.  e.,  whose  appearance  before  my  eyes  always  causes 
that  idea)  doth  really  exist,  and  hath  a  being  without  me.  And  of 
this,  the  greatest  assurance  I  can  possibly  have,  and  to  which  my 
faculties  can  attain,  is  the  testimony  of  my  eyes,  which  are  the 
proper  and  sole  judges  of  this  thing,  whose  testimony  I  have  rea- 
son to  rely  on  as  so  certain,  that  I  can  no  more  doubt,  whilst  I 
write  this,  that  I  see  white  and  black,  and  that  something  really 
exists,  that  causes  that  sensation  in  me,  than  that  I  write  or  move 
my  hand :  which  is  a  certainty  as  great  as  human  nature  is  capable 
of,  concerning  the  existence  of  anything  but  a  man's  self  alone, 
and  of  God."*  Although  this  knowledge  is  not  so  certain  as  in- 
»rv.  xi.  a. 


96  A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


tuition  or  deductions  of  our  reason,  "yet  it  is  an  assurance  that 
deserves  the  name  of  knowledge."  "I  think  nobody  can,  in  earn- 
est, be  so  skeptical  as  to  be  uncertain  of  the  existence  of  those 
things  which  he  sees  and  feels.  At  least,  he  that  can  doubt  so  far 
(whatever  he  may  have  with  his  own  thoughts)  will  never  have 
any  controversy  with  me;  since  he  can  never  be  sure  I  say  any- 
thing contrary  to  his  own  opinion.  As  to  myself,  I  think  God  has 
given  me  assurance  enough  of  the  existence  of  things  without  me ; 
since  by  their  different  application  I  can  produce  in  myself  both 
pleasure  and  pain,  which  is  one  great  concernment  of  my  present 
state.  This  is  certain,  the  confidence  that  our  faculties  do  not 
herein  deceive  us  is  the  greatest  assurances  we  are  capable  of,  con- 
cerning the  existence  of  material  beings.  For  we  cannot  act  any- 
thing but  by  our  faculties ;  nor  talk  of  knowledge  itself,  but  by  the 
helps  of  those  faculties  which  are  fitted  to  apprehend  even  what 
knowledge  is."*  Locke's  course  of  thought  here  runs  very  little 
above  common-sense.  With  his  characteristic  ambiguity  at  cru- 
cial stages  in  his  reasoning,  he  uses  two  kinds  of  external  worlds : 
the  common-sense  external  world  and  his  own  hypothetical  ex- 
ternal world.  What  cogency  there  is  in  his  argument  applies  to 
the  former ;  but  he  appropriates  it  for  the  latter. 

Locke  says  that  his  eyes  are  the  proper  and  sole  judges  of  visible 
objects,  yet  by  his  own  theory  and  assertions  they  deceive  him  in 
regard  to  all  the  visible  secondary  qualities  and  some  of  the  pri- 
mary. He  says  that  he  can  not  doubt  that  he  sees  white  and  black 
and  that  something  really  exists  which  causes  these  "sensations" 
(ideas)  in  him.  The  first  part  of  this  statement  no  one  doubts. 
There  is  the  experience  of  black  letters  on  a  white  surface.  But 
that  something  really  exists  distinct  from  the  paper  and  ink  as 
this  constellation  of  ideas,  and  in  a  space  distinct  from  this  system 
of  related  ideas,  as  say  in  a  fourth  dimension,  that  not  only  may 
be  doubted,  but  it  is  also  not  even  demanded  by  natural  science 
or  common-sense.  The  book  on  the  shelf  before  me,  call  it  a  com- 
plex idea  if  you  like,  is  just  as  real  a  thing  as  I  want.  If  there  is 

*IV.  xi.  3. 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  97 


some  mysterious  fourth  dimensional  reality  supporting  it,  which 
I  do  not  experience  and  can  not  experience,  it  does  not  interest  me. 
I  experience  no  repugnancy  at  all  in  resting  with  this  "complex 
idea."  I  call  this  constellation  of  "ideas,"  that  interests  me,  a  real 
thing,  a  book.  It  is  related  by  various  systems  of  relations  to 
other  real  things.  I  do  not  seek  for  a  cause  aside  from  other 
"complex  ideas" ;  the  paper  mill,  printing  press,  author,  and  book 
agent. 

Another  consideration,  according  to  Locke,  that  proves  the  real 
existence  of  his  external  world,  is  the  fact  that  an  idea  from  sen- 
sation is  distinct  from  an  idea  from  memory.  "There  is  a  mani- 
fest difference  between  the  ideas  laid  up  in  my  memory  (over 
which,  if  they  were  there  only,  I  should  have  constantly  the  same 
power  to  dispose  of  them,  and  lay  them  by  at  pleasure)  and  those 
which  force  themselves  upon  me,  and  I  can  not  avoid  having. 
And  therefore  it  must  needs  be  some  exterior  cause,  and  the  brisk 
acting  of  some  objects  without  me,  whose  efficacy  I  can  not  resist, 
that  produces  those  ideas  in  my  mind,  whether  I  will  or  no.  Be- 
sides, there  is  nobody  who  doth  not  perceive  the  difference  in  him- 
self between  contemplating  the  sun,  as  he  hath  the  idea  of  it  in 
his  memory,  and  actually  looking  upon  it;  of  which  two  his  per- 
ception is  so  distinct,  that  few  of  his  ideas  are  more  distinguish- 
able one  from  another.  And  therefore  he  hath  certain  knowledge, 
that  they  are  not  both  memory,  or  the  actions  of  his  mind,  and 
fancies  only  within  him ;  but  that  actual  seeing  hath  a  cause  with- 
out."* Locke  assumes  that  ideas  from  memory  and  fancy  can  be 
disposed  of  at  will.  But  there  is  a  stubbornness  about  both  mem- 
ories and  fancies  quite  comparable  to  that  of  ideas  from  sensation. 
Locke  gives  an  account  of  how  he  came  to  write  this  Essay.  Can 
he  dispose  of  that  memory  at  his  pleasure?  To  be  sure  he  can  turn 
his  attention  to  something  else,  but  so  he  can  do  with  the  sun. 
He  can  shut  his  eyes.  And  as  he  himself  says,  one  can  be  so  en- 
grossed in  some  train  of  thought  as  to  be  entirely  oblivious  to  the 
solicitations  of  the  senses.  But  the  ideas  of  memory  and  fancy 

•IV.  xi.  6. 


98  A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


have  causes,  i.  e.,  the  mind  itself,  and  apparently  there  is  no  reason 
for  not  identifying  their  causes  with  that  which  causes  ideas  from 
sensation,  except  upon  the  ground  that  there  is  this  distinction  in 
causes,  which  distinction  is  jmt  now  the  point  at  issue.    It  will 
be  readily  granted  that  there  is  a  difference  between  the  idea  of 
the  sun  f rofci  sensation  and  the  idea  of  the  sun  from  memory.  This 
is  a  statement  of  fact.  But  what  is  the  difference?  We  have  his 
own  word  that  a  remembered  idea  is  the  same  idea  we  had  before 
with  the  additional  idea  that  we  had  it  before.    Suppose  the  re- 
membered idea  is  the  weaker,  there  is  nothing  against  supposing 
that  it  is  produced  by  some  weaker  external  material  cause,  say 
some  echoing  motion  of  the  brain.    This  would  be  supported  by 
the  fact  that  the  simple  ideas  of  the  remembered  idea  are  of  just 
the  same  kind  as  those  of  the  idea  from  sensation.     If  the  dis- 
tinction insisted  upon  is,  not  that  one  is  weaker  than  the  other,  but 
that  there  is  an  accompanying  idea  that  "  I  have  had  this  before," 
that  would  not  apply  to  ideas  from  fancy.    But  to  consider  only 
memory,  do  not  ideas  from  sensation  have  an  accompanying  idsa 
that,  "I  have  not  had  this  before?"    What  these  significant  ideas 
are  is  an  apprehension  of  my  biography;  remembered  ideas  fit 
into  it  in  one  place  and  sensational  ideas  fit  into  it  in  another.    So 
the  mere  presence  of  a  sign  or  mark  that  dates  an  idea  now  or  in 
the  past  is  no  guarantee  that  an  idea  of  one  sort  has  not  the  same 
cause  or  ground  as  one  of  another. 

"Pleasure  or  pain  which  accompanies  actual  sensation,  accom- 
panies not  the  returning  of  those  ideas,"  says  Locke,  "without  the 
external  objects,***."  Thus  the  pain  of  heat  or  cold,  when  the  idea 
of  it  is  revived  in  our  minds,  gives  us  no  disturbance ;  which,  when 
felt,  was  very  troublesome,  and  is  again,  when  actually  repeated ; 
which  is  occasioned  by  the  disorder  the  external  object  causes  in 
our  bodies  when  applied  to  it.  And  we  remember  the  pains  of 
hunger,  thirst,  or  the  headache,  without  any  pain  at  all;  which 
would  either  never  disturb  us,  or  else  constantly  do  it,  as  often  as 
we  thought  of  it,  were  there  nothing  more  but  ideas  floating  in 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  99 


our  minds,  and  appearances  entertaining  our  fancies,  without  the 
real  existence  of  things  affecting  us  from  abroad.    The  same  may 
be  said  of  pleasure  accompanying  several  actual  sensations,  and 
though  mathematical  demonstrations  depend  not  upon  sense,  yet 
the  examining  them  by  diagrams  gives  great  credit  to  the  evidence 
of  our  sight,  and  seems  to  give  it  a  certainty  approaching  to  that 
of  demonstration  itself."*    Now,  pleasure  and  pain,  as  he  has  told 
us,  are  "only  different  constitutions  of  the  mind,  sometimes  occa- 
sioned by  disorder  in  the  body,  sometimes  by  thoughts  of  the 
mind."t    "By  pleasure  and  pain,  delight  and  uneasiness,  I  must  all 
along  be  understood  (as  I  have  above  intimated)  to  mean,  not 
only  bodily  pain  and  pleasure,  but  whatsoever  delight  or  uneasi- 
ness is  felt  by  us,  whether  arising  from  any  grateful  or  unaccept- 
able sensation  or  reflection."!     And  again:  "Delight  or  uneasi- 
ness, one  or  the  other  of  them,  joins  themselves  to  almost  all  our 
ideas,  both  of  reflection  and  sensation:  and  there  is  scarce  any 
affection  of  our  senses  from  without,  any  retired  thought  of  our 
mind  within,  which  is  not  able  to  produce  in  us  pleasure  or  pain."§ 
Juxtaposing  these  quotations  seems  sufficient  to  invalidate  his  ar- 
gument.   How  can  pleasure  and  pain  be  a  guarantee  of  external 
reality  when  they  attach  themselves  to  all  kinds  of  ideas?    The 
fancies  of  the  misanthrope,  the  hallucinations  of  the  insane,  the 
imaginings  of  one  suffering  from  the  delirium  of  a  fever ;  and  the 
dreams    and    nightmares,    the    sorrows,    disappointments,    and 
wranglings  of  ordinary  life,  all  carry  their  pains,  more  acute,  if 
we  are  to  judge  by  the  accounts,  than  purely  physical  pains.    And 
likewise  the  pleasure  of  good  company,  rational  thinking,  right- 
eous behavior,  poetry,  fiction,  and  a  thousand  others,  are  com- 
parable and  usually  supposed  superior  to  the  pleasures  of  our 
senses.    Not  the  least  among  the  pleasures  is  that  of  philosophy. 
"I  here  put  into  thy  hands,"  says  Locke  to  the  reader,  "what  has 
been  the  diversion  of  some  of  my  idle  and  heavy  hours :  if  it  has 
the  good  luck  to  prove  so  of  any  of  thine,  and  thou  hast  but  half 
so  much  pleasure  in  reading,  as  I  had  in  writing  it,  thou  will  as 
*rv.  xi.  e.  tn.  xx.  15. 

flL   xx.   2.  §11.  vll.  2. 


100  A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


little  think  of  thy  money,  as  I  do  my  pains,  ill  bestowed." 

Locke  says  that  although  actual  hunger  and  thirst  are  painful, 
remembered  hunger  and  thirst  are  not.  What  does  this  prove? 
Obviously  that  a  present  idea  from  sensation  is  different  from  the 
memory  of  it.  Locke  here  is  assuming  that  the  alternative  to  his 
explanation  is  that  all  common-sense  objects  are  fancies  of  the 
mind.  But  why  not  say  that  these  objects  are  mere  ideas  of  the 
mind?  Locke  himself  has  tried  to  show  that  the  mind  perceives 
only  its  ideas,  and  thus  he  horrifies  common-sense.  Now  he  tries 
to  exploit  this  horror  for  his  own  use.  But  because  I  rest  with 
common-sense  objects,  every-day  houses,  books,  trees,  and  refuse 
to  postulate  an  unperceived  and  unperceivable  realm  of  causes 
for  them,  does  not  convict  me  of  calling  them  fancies  of  my  mind. 
If  any  one  has  tried  to  show  that  common-sense  objects  are  fancies 
of  the  mind,  Locke  is  that  one. 

Nothwithstanding  that  Locke  speaks  so  confidently  about  the 
real  existence  of  his  external  world,  yet  he  feels  that  he  has  not 
made  out  a  good  case.  It  is  foolish  and  vain,  he  thinks,  for  a  man 
to  doubt  very  plain  and  clear  truths  just  because  they  are  not 
capable  of  sure  and  certain  demonstration  and  are  open  to  the 
"pretense  of  doubting."*  A  belief  in  the  existence  of  the  external 
world  is  necessary  to  carry  on  the  practical  affairs  of  life.  This 
uncertainty  of  his  is  more  apparent  because  of  his  refusal  to  meet 
the  objections  to  his  doctrine.  He  admits  that  it  can  be  doubted 
but  calls  it  folly  to  do  so.  It  is  folly,  presumably,  because  we  have 
to  act  upon  the  assumption  of  the  external  world.  Its  truth  is 
pragmatic.  But  the  world  that  concerns  us  as  practical  beings  is 
the  common-sense  external  world,  or  the  world  of  ideas  from  sen- 
sation according  to  Locke.  Nobody  doubts  this  external  world. 
Locke's  ugly  mathematical  realm,  steeped  in  infinite  darkness  and 
silence,  more  gruesome  and  abominable  than  the  City  of  Dreadful 
Night,  thi3  is  the  world  that  is  of  no  practical  importance  and 
whose  existence  may  be  doubted. 
*rv.  XL  10. 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  101 


In  regard  to  sense  experience  Locke  says,  "If  any  one  say,  a 
dream  may  do  the  same  thing,  and  all  these  ideas  may  be  produced 
without  any  external  objects ;  he  may  please  to  dream  that  I  make 
him  this  answer:  1.  That  it  is  no  great  matter,  whether  I  re- 
move this  scruple  or  no:  where  all  is  but  dream,  reasoning  and 
arguments  are  of  no  use,  truth  and  knowledge  nothing.  2.  That 
I  believe  he  will  allow  very  manifest  difference  between  dreaming 
of  being  in  the  fire,  and  being  actually  in)  it."f  The  supposition 
that  our  ideas  may  not  have  an  external  cause,  is  admitted  by 
Locke  to  be  a  possible  and  therefore  a  rational  supposition.  To 
call  this  a  dream  is  thus  merely  figurative.  Add  to  this  Locke's 
admission  that  the  way  in  which  an  external  object  can  cause  an 
idea  in  us  is  incomprehensible,  and  the  obvious  conclusion  that 
all  ideas  are  ideas  from  reflection,  i.  e.,  caused  by  the  mind  acting 
upon  itself,  it  does  not  appear  to  be  irrational  to  make  such  a 
supposition, 
try.  a  14. 


10$  A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


40.  CONCLUSION.  This  study  of  Locke's  theory  of  knowledge  is 
therefore  an  argument  for  the  organic  unity  of  experience.  Ac- 
cording to  Locke  the  world  of  knowledge  is  distinct  and  separate 
from  reality.  This  doctrine  of  two  worlds  has  been  attacked  at 
all  points.  The  reasons  for  choosing  it  have  been  sought  for  and 
shown  to  be  insufficient.  The  rationalistic  lumber  Locke  has  piled 
upon  this  foundation  has  been  examined  and  has  been  found  con- 
fusing, unnecessary  ad  contradictory.  At  every  turn,  in  contra- 
distinction to  Locke's  dualism,  the  adequacy  of  "organic  experi- 
entialism,"  as  Dr.  J.  A.  Leighton  calls  it,  has  been  pointed  out. 
Electrons  and  stars,  knowledge  and  facts,  thoughts  and  reality, 
all  belong  to  one  world  of  experience.  There  are  no  isolated  atoms, 
independent  facts,  irreducible  pluralisms,  or  absolute  insulations : 
this  has  been  the  contention.  The  universe  is  not  pluralistic  but 
organic.  Locke's  Essay  in  a  large  part  is  in  harmony  with  organic 
experientialism.  This  harmony  has  been  shown  at  length.  Locke 
beheld  the  truth  from  time  to  time  between  rifts  in  his  rational- 
istic fog,  but  for  the  most  part  he  groped  and  stumbled. 

The  obvious  loose  and  incoherent  style  of  this  study  will  be  seen 
after  a  consideration  of  these  concluding  remarks,  to  be  a  super- 
ficial appearance  due  to  the  Socratic  procedure. 


A  STUDY  OF  LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  103 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

I,  Raymond  Gregory,  was  born  near  New  Antioch,  Ohio, 
October  1,  1879.  I  received  my  early  education  in  a  country 
school.  In  1897,  I  entered  the  High  School  at  New  Vienna,  Ohio, 
and  completed  the  course  in  1900.  In  January,  1910,  I  entered 
Wilmington  College,  and  in  June,  1912,  I  received  the  degree  of 
Bachelor  of  Arts.  The  following  school  year  I  attended  Haver- 
ford  College,  and  received  the  degree  of  Bachelor  of  Arts.  The 
next  year  I  went  to  Harvard  University  and  received  the  degree  of 
Master  of  Arts.  In  September,  1915,  I  entered  the  graduate 
school  of  the  Ohio  State  University,  and  continued  in  residence 
until  June,  1917. 


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